Experience Liberation in a Relentless World

Burnout, chronic stress and fatigue are now common place topics among mothers, teachers and mental health providers and many others. Compared to chronic stress, burnout is particularly problematic because it is often accompanied by withdrawal and cycling emotions.

However, one of the main factors that distinguishes autistic burnout, is that it can ensue from just regular living in a world designed around neurotypical functioning. There’s often increased sensitivity and isolation in an attempt to recover.

In this workshop that is comprised of six sessions, we explore autistic burnout in the larger context of the neurodiversity movement, also known as the "next civil rights movement."  This context includes examining autism burnout in the context of a decolonized approach to well-being.  The link between autism, burnout and oppression is ableism.  This affects how we conceive of autism, our expectations of what is appropriate, and dare we say "normal," which will in turn inform treatment approaches, assumptions and goals not only for treatment outcomes, but daily living for autistics.  *We'll also discuss this from lived and direct autistic experience so as to lift up and center autistic voices as we do so.

This workshop integrates understanding and awareness of autism in an approach that recognizes and resists ingrained ways of thinking and behaving related to dominance and power. By embracing practices around embodied living, we can reestablish our natural inclinations towards connection which impact health. When we practice embodiment, our body experiences safety which facilitates presence, an essential quality if we are to resist burnout.  

Discover and Practice a Decolonized Approach to Preventing Burnout

Whether you are a practitioner or have experienced therapy as a client, or both, it’s likely that the training underlying theoretical approaches used for healing reflect and reinforce underlying power dynamics rooted in monocentrism and supremacy that perpetuate pathology. The conditioning runs so deep, even with post graduate training centered on embodied practices, it’s hard not to slip in and out of conditioning that is rooted well within psychology practices, thinking and research.

A checklist or information sheet regarding these practices is insufficient to dissolve generations of subconscious learning. It takes consistent practice to automate healthier behaviors and patterns of thinking.  More importantly, our lives are not static.  Learning is a process that unfolds over time in the context of our everyday interactions and daily activities.  

Rather than a "to do" list to identify and prevent burnout, this workshop delves deeper to offer a way of transforming our lives so that we live attuned to our limits and resist tendencies that promote burnout.  In so doing, we perform anti-oppressive work that redefines "normal" and what is acceptable.

If you care about your personal and professional growth, you've probably already experienced or witnessed amazing instances of transformation and possibility.  You will also have had some awareness of what it takes to change and how to practice in a neurodiversity affirming manner.  However, even experienced professionals can struggle with new paradigms and get stuck or stressed when it comes to dealing with novel experiences.  If we have unresolved trauma or internalized bias, this can also make us susceptible to internalized prejudices and blind-spots.  

Besides, growth isn't linear.  This six week extended workshop allows you to practice the perspectives you will discover over time.  We simply learn better in a communal setting with time to implement what we learn in our everyday settings and return again to the community setting to address any nuances and inconsistencies.  Unlearning and relearning takes time.

How might this interactive learning benefit you?

Being aware of these patterns is not sufficient. If that were the case, most therapists could provide their clients with checklists and send them on their way.  Connecting the dots is a lot harder than most people think.  For starters, though burnout is widely considered to be of epidemic proportions, it's not officially recognized as an illness, health or medical condition.  It's underlying causes are often normalized and responsibility continues to shift to the individual despite its effect on suicide rates, higher turnover, lower productivity, and higher healthcare costs.  

We are simply asking the wrong questions.  It's not what's wrong with the individual.  It's what's wrong with the way we live our lives and the tolerance for unfair treatment, unmanageable workloads, time pressures and unrealistic deadlines.  When larger and widely unseen forces rooted in oppression are internalized, it can be quite difficult to sort out the toxicity.  And distressing.  Discerning oppression is not an undertaking that lends itself to a quick fix.  In most cases, awareness is followed by swift stress responses to protect identity that has internalized subtle notions embedded in supremacist thinking.  This will be the *meat* of these upcoming interactive sessions.

Understanding Autistic Burnout, Neurodiversity & Decolonized Therapy

What You'll Learn and What We Will Cover:

“There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.” — bell hooks

You'll Learn From:

Here's the plan:

"The entire message of neurodiversity challenges not only how we view autism but societal norms regarding how we are ‘supposed’ to think, behave and interact with the world. "

~Meira Greenfeld

Testimonials: