Author

Jen

Speech-Language Pathologist. Nature-loving, book-reading, coffee-drinking, mismatched-socks-wearing, Autism-Awesomeness-finder, sensitive-soul Bostonian.

Just go!

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I didn’t want to go to yoga today. I got home, my head felt heavy, and I lay (laid? Whatever) down on the couch.

“I’ll skip today. I just can’t do it today.” I tried to tell myself. But, turns out I argue fairly well (ha! If you know me well, this is an understatement). So, I reminded myself,

“Dude. What are you thinking? Yeah, you’re tired. But yoga wakes you up. And your Tuesday yoga class is your favorite. And it has never left you feeling less than ecstatic, proud, strong, energized. So put on a scarf and mittens, and go. ”

So, I did! I can’t even believe I contemplated skipping. I love yoga, I love Tuesday yoga, and I feel so so so good now.

And on that note….
image

FYI, I actually do like lifting. But I literally laughed out loud at this.

A fairly obvious conclusion

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Here is one of those pieces of information that we all KNOW is true, but we kind of intuitively forget it until it happens:

Once you’re in the habit of doing something, it’s easier to do it.

I know, I know. Duh. Obviously. Roll your eyes. Whatever. It’s the kind of thing that we have to really make a part of us, truly live it, until it’s internalized again.

I last posted about my habits/resolutions that I’m aiming to increase. Well, it turns out, when I “clean one thing” one day, I usually clean something else. Or clean one thing the next day. And when I “moved my body” one day, I make myself go for a walk the next day. And when I practice “keeping in touch,” it doesn’t seem so overwhelming — and I look forward to it.

None of this is to say that I do all of my resolutions every day. But that’s okay, that is in no way my goal. Perfection isn’t necessary at all.

It’s just getting easier. That’s all I’m sayin’.

 

On habits and resolutions

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When I read Gretchen Rubin’s book,  The Happiness Project, it was over a year ago and I was entranced. I had so often thought of things I wanted to do (uhh, like, blog) but never did. Maybe because I wasn’t super motivated, but more likely because I didn’t hold myself accountable, and got stuck under, “I’ll do it soon.”

And for a while I kept it in the back of my mind, kept a “think of resolutions” note in my to do lists, but nothing came of it. Then, a few months ago I started listing resolutions that I would have, if I ever did this. I thought of realistic, specific, attainable, important to me ones. I phrased them like Gretchen would. And I thought about them, and that helped.

Then I brought in technology. I found a habit tracker app. Something about that motivation, about getting the reminder pop ups and being asked “did you do this yesterday?” worked.

My current three resolutions are:
1. Clean one thing. (counted as anything other than the dishes and making the bed. I often get overwhelmed with cleaning our apartment, but also get noticeably anxious when the apartment is a mess. And I’ve found that in allowing myself to just clean one thing, I usually actually end up doing more than one.)

  1. Move your body. (which has coincided with me returning to yoga, which I am so glad about. Power yoga with a wonderful teacher is incredible for my body, the amount I sweat is amazing, the strength I’m gaining is wonderful, and the mood change in me is good for my soul. But, this counts as hiking, yoga, gym, a walk. My mind and emotional state is so much calmer when I’ve moved my body. Also, check out the book Spark.)

  2. Keep in touch. (this is the hardest one. I am an introvert by nature, which means that even though I feel perfectly okay with going longer periods of time without checking in with friends, I do, very much realize, that my friends don’t feel the same way — and their extroverted selves aren’t satisfied with that. So, it’s a give-and-take. Plus, I realize that I have gotten very black-and-white about this — like, either I had to go out every night and have long phone conversations each day, or nothing. But I’m giving myself a middle ground. So, Keep in Touch means that I send a text, an email, g-chat, see a friend, make plans, or have a phone conversation with a friend. I give myself permission to not do this every day, but the knowledge that it’s one of my resolutions keeps me doing it more than I might otherwise. And it’s meeting loved ones halfway. Which they deserve, and so do I.)

And…it’s going well so far. And I don’t feel internal pressure to do it like Gretchen did, where I change my resolutions each month or devote my entire month to them. Just having them in the back of my mind keeps me cognizant that they’re there — and let’s be honest, meeting them feels really, really good. Because ultimately, they’re all about self-care, and that’s the whole point, right?

Writing about writing

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I spend so much time worrying about blogging, worrying that nobody would read it, worrying that I wouldn’t be a good blogger. But now, a year, two years later, I still am not regularly blogging and I still wish I was. So really, I’m just scared and I need to stop being scared and just write, even if nobody reads it, even if it’s just for me. Because time is passing and there is no magical moment when I’ll be ready.

Using curriculum in S/L Therapy

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The year is getting started, and I’m thinking about how to approach my caseload and my kiddos. My kids all have language-based learning disabilities, and many of them have other things going on too — Asperger’s, ADHD, etc. So, it’s hard enough for them to pay attention, and when they are able to, for those brief spurts of time, it’s hard for them to internalize what’s being said, and even more difficult to connect anything I work on to the rest of their day.

So my goal: make speech/language therapy more functional, instead of teaching concepts with random sentences and worksheets and examples, connect it to their curriculum — teach parts of speech with their science vocabulary, work on inferencing with their history books, etc.

I’m just putting out a feeler for thoughts — what have other SLPs done to streamline this process, get curriculum info from content teachers, implement it into what you do, etc?

Teasing + Autism

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I’m actually not talking about “typical” kids bullying kids on the spectrum. No, I’m thinking about what happens when a bunch of little kids get together, specifically my group of 6-8-year olds, all on the “higher-functioning” end of the spectrum (which is, only to illustrate that they are very verbal, independent, etc.), and a behavior I see in them often is teasing each other. Now, by teasing I mean, “Boo, Peter!!” or “We don’t like Lily!!” but severe or not, they interpret it as the other child being mean to them, and they don’t like it. So, they are mean back. And the cycle continues.

I see two ways that I can address this, and help their caretakers address this. One way is to address the reaction — strengthen their ability to ignore, to self-advocate, to speak up and say they don’t like it, etc. That I’ve got down pat. But it’s the other way, dealing with the teasing behavior, that I’m thinking about tonight. I just sat down and tried to intuitively put myself into their minds and imagine what it’s like for them and what leads them to tease. What immediately came up for me was that they want to connect, they want to bond with another child, and it’s very easy to do that by teasing a third child. Conversations are tricky, pretend play is tricky, initiating games or activities is tricky, but saying “Boo, Peter!” helps them bond with the other teaser. If I’m right (and I’m not saying I AM right, or that this is a universal application, or anything like that), then maybe the way to handle this is to really solidify ways to connect with a peer — brainstorm things to say (e.g., “Wanna play a game?”) or laugh about (e.g., knock-knock jokes). Because if this IS the case, then the behavior is certainly serving a function. Eliminating the behavior, by just saying that teasing is not okay, doesn’t give them any replacement.

Thoughts? Ideas? Experiences? Please!

Standards of behavior

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I was driving to the gym this morning, thinking, with a smile on my face, about last night. Last night, my boyfriend and I walked hand in hand to get some frozen yogurt. Along the way, I was filled with joy and decided to skip. He laughed at me, kindly. He has long-since embraced my quirkiness, and I can be my true self around him. And he said, in a lovingly, jokingly way, “Do you think people can’t see you?” And I replied, “Of course they can see me, but I don’t care.” And I went on, to say, “They probably laugh and then think how envious they are of me to be so comfortable with myself.”

And that was it. And it wasn’t until this morning that I realized. How fine of a line it is. When we work with our autistic, Aspie, NVLD kids. How often do we tell them, “That’s unexpected, that will make someone have a weird thought about you,” when if it was a neurotypical individual doing it, we would view the behavior as, “Wow, they have enviable self-esteem to be so comfortable with themselves that they do x, y, or z without worrying about it.”

I last wrote about not extinguishing “weird” behaviors unless they are detrimental to one’s becoming their true self. But it goes deeper than that. Our standards, our viewpoints, the lens in which we view behavior is so different, and it hit me big today.