(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Last week's episode I talked about the pain
of not feeling like you belong in community
and I wanted to expand about that and
so this week I'm going to be speaking
about how to make individuals, especially neurodivergent individuals,
disabled individuals, people who are often left out
of community, how to make them feel like
a part of your community and welcoming and
it goes far beyond saying hey we're an
inclusive group or hey we're an inclusive community
or our goal is to make everybody you
know feel nice and comfortable because saying those
words are is one thing doing the actions
taking the steps necessary to actually put them
into place is something that let's be honest
a lot of groups and a lot of
individuals just aren't willing to do.
So let's dive deeply into this pride episode
and talk about how to make our spaces
much more welcoming for neurodivergent and disabled individuals.
You're listening to Feathermane Soul Wisdom, a podcast
for those looking to rediscover their wild spirit
in spite of life's challenges.
If you're living with a chronic illness or
neurodivergent or consider yourself disabled and you're looking
to connect with your own inner untamed essence,
then this show is for you.
Your host is Kit Kaelstow, Wild Spirit Storyteller.
Thanks for listening and now on to the
episode.
Hi I'm Kit Kaelstow, your host for the
Feathermane Soul Wisdom show and you know what
I'm just going to be really honest and
really transparent up front.
I have reached a stage in my life
that well whatever whatever shreds or faint hints
of a filter I had as an undiagnosed
and then diagnosed autistic individual those little wisps
of a filter that I held on to
for most of my life they're gone I'm
sorry they I I have reached the stage
of life where the field in which my
f's are grown is barren it it doesn't
grow them anymore and I have to admit
it could be the past 18 months or
so well you know possibly the past 10
years or so but especially the past couple
of years I guess I used to be
a really happy bubbly optimistic you know we're
all in this together type person and I
would like to still be that type of
person but I also have had some stark
awareness about humanity and community and people in
it and honestly I blame my undergrad in
psychology because sitting through two years of classes
that basically tell me that I'm the one
with deficits that I'm the one that isn't
you know I'm the square peg that's not
fitting into their round neurotypical hole you know
that that was a weird analogy I'm sorry
but you know basically being told for two
years that I was the problem when it
was very clearly I don't know the professor
that allowed really rampant transphobia in their capstone
class that was supposed to be all about
cultural sensitivity yeah so I'm I want this
episode to be constructive I want this episode
to be something that people can take away
you know tidbits of information from or maybe
that they can look more deeply into their
hearts look more deeply into their groups their
organizations but I'll be honest my autistic pattern
recognition tells me that we're on our own
my friends it you know we we cannot
rely on other people to create space for
us and maybe that's the whole message of
pride you know pride is when as a
queer individual you step forward and you say
I am proud I am who I am
and I am proud of that and I
am I mean there I really I really
don't want to diminish that in any way
and so when the world doesn't make space
for you you have to make space for
yourself and so while yes I'm going to
spend this episode talking about the different ways
that organizations can work to be more inclusive
can help make sure there is space for
everybody and everybody feels like a part of
the community I also think we have to
be aware that we have to make space
for ourselves maybe I'll do you know fine
maybe I'll do another pride episode next week
and talk about that we'll see but let's
just recap a little bit the reasons why
individuals may not feel comfortable in groups or
feel like they're a part of the community
if you are neurodivergent and that is a
broad broad umbrella I'm not just talking about
autism ADHD and AUDHD there is a vast
list of diagnoses that people could have that
would be indicating how their brain works that
you know could be a traumatic brain injury
complex PTSD is considered a divergent neurotype Tourette's
depression anxiety all of that you know there's
a huge list of conditions there's no way
I could list them all and if your
brain does not work the way that culture
or society expects then you're going to feel
left out and if you're not aware that
that's why you're feeling left out as many
undiagnosed neurodivergent individuals do then you know that's
going to compound that because you're going to
feel left out of community and you're not
going to know why so organizations what can
you do to help individuals who are neurodivergent
feel welcome and wanted and that wanted is
the most important part here I think of
this discussion because it's hell to feel like
you're not wanted in a group trust me
you're not alone in that what can an
organization do to make somebody feel wanted well
first of all is respect everybody's lived experience
if somebody tells you something isn't working don't
dismiss it as just them if something if
somebody actually has the strength the executive function
the strong feeling to speak up about something
that should be listened to and if it
is an accessibility thing such as a sensory
issue if it's a way somebody's acting it
should always be examined and is this a
valid concern is this something we can take
action on and not just dismiss it because
of who it's coming from likewise if you
have somebody come into your organization that has
experience that differs from a large group of
people in the organization so since this is
a pride month it would be if your
if your pride group is primarily local individuals
who are gay who are lesbian who are
transgender if an asexual or an agender person
comes into your group don't dismiss their concerns
when they bring them up just because they're
not the same as everybody in the group
and we see this sometimes in the queer
community with agender people with bisexual people with
people who whose gender and sexual orientation do
not align with kind of you know what
the media tells us that pride should be
our group should be the other thing should
be if you do group activities together make
sure expectations are clear a great example is
the meme i've seen going around where you
know a bunch of people are invited to
a picnic and the person running the picnic
says no i don't need to bring anything
it's all good and the person who took
that literally shows up without anything because they
were told it's good it's okay you don't
have to bring anything when everybody else does
and then that makes them feel left out
then they're like hey why didn't you bring
anything and the person says well you told
me not to i didn't mean that don't
do that mean what you say say what
you mean make clear expectations clear directions and
with those clear directions if you're making a
group decision make sure that every voice is
heard and if you have somebody in the
group that is going what you know whatever
the group wants whatever you say make sure
they get a say in things too because
quite often the person that defaults to you
know whatever you want you know best it's
okay i'll do what you want usually they're
defaulting if that becomes a default for somebody
that's usually a fawning behavior and that's an
indication that there is trauma that that person
either has trauma in their past and that's
that's how their neurotype or their brain works
or that they are not feeling comfortable and
safe in the group to speak up with
their needs i want to shift gears a
little bit to disability disabilities aren't just needing
a mobility aid such as a cane or
a wheelchair disabilities aren't just visible there are
a host a large number of invisible disabilities
and regardless of whether a disability is visible
or invisible just you know your abilities vary
on any given day and i think that's
something we can all agree on regardless as
of whether society considers us disabled or not
that one day you wake up you have
a lot of energy you can do things
the next day you wake up and well
to use the southern term you feel like
a can of busted biscuits the other thing
about disabilities is that you've got to keep
in mind the models of disabilities some people
are disabled because there is a medical condition
causing the disability some people are disabled because
society has disabled them society has blocked them
access society has blocked them the ability to
go about their life and so to tie
that back into like the neurodivergent individuals a
you know as somebody with a neurodivergent brain
my brain is operating the way that my
brain operates there's nothing wrong with how your
brain operates however society is disabling because society
has created rules and structures and expectations that
do not match well with my brain and
society with and culture is all built around
the neurotypical brain and so society that's the
societal disabling societal disabling would be a church
for example without a wheelchair ramp or a
church without the ability for an individual using
a wheelchair to receive communion at the altar
to use a couple of examples from my
education society can disable in that way and
so when you have disabled individuals in your
group and i want to be clear disabled
is not a bad word there are language
preferences among different groups but personally i don't
consider disabled a bad word because as i
just got done explaining sometimes it's not me
that's disabled it's society and so with that
it includes it includes or involves a little
more conscientiousness and a little more care on
your organization if you're a small group maybe
even as much as a dozen people you
probably know most of the people in the
group so it's no big deal to say
to know okay i know this member of
my group i know that they sometimes have
days where they're not able to walk very
far let's make sure we can accommodate this
person in our gathering or in our event
no problem at all so a good example
would be a pride parade and you know
making sure that this person can participate on
a float for example or in the back
of a truck sitting down however however that
works um for for your particular parade but
making sure the person can be comfortable can
be safe while participating and still feeling like
a part of the event in other words
like the other part of that would be
don't have everybody walking and then have just
this one person sitting in a chair you
know have a small group of people on
the float sitting down have some on the
float standing up if there's room if it's
safe have some people you know walking around
passing out candy whatever you wish to do
for your event make sure that that person
is not singled out in any way the
other thing i would say is if it's
a larger group simply be aware that you
may have people attending that are not able
to participate in a certain manner again no
judgment calls there's no no right or wrong
but if you're if you're a larger group
or not everybody knows everybody or you're you're
not on such close terms with everybody somebody
may not disclose hey i have an invisible
disability not me i'll disclose but not everybody
does and that's their choice and so you
want to make sure that you are creating
an event creating a space where people with
energy limitations with sensory issues with mobility issues
can actually participate in the event and yet
feel safe and so when you put those
two pieces together the bottom line the best
way to have people to include people and
bring people into your community is to simply
be considerate of other people to honor other
people's lived experiences and to really just put
yourselves in the shoes of other people in
other situations that you may not have experienced
and this to me goes hand in hand
with leadership and so if you have the
leader of a group that's basically saying one
thing and yet members of the group are
feeling like the that you know what that
person's saying is not being followed then that
really does not um you know then that
does not indicate good leadership a good leader
needs to be able to look at things
from multiple points of view and needs to
be able to accept different lived experiences and
different people's experiences even if everybody is doing
the same thing at that same moment because
you we don't know sensory issues sensory differences
nobody knows what another person can experience you
know there are no lights that flash on
your forehead when like the lights are too
bright or the background noise is too loud
and maybe somebody with an auditory processing issue
is having difficulty with that conversation because the
band is you know the band music is
too loud you don't know what other people
are going through unless they tell you and
if they don't tell you then you need
you know a good part of good community
is making sure everybody feels included and everybody
feels involved and so the the last thing
I want to leave people with today is
that even if somebody doesn't speak up not
speaking up doesn't mean that things aren't happening
what that tells you is that you've created
an environment where somebody doesn't feel safe speaking
up and usually these people will just go
away they'll just drift out of your group
and the group will go on being inaccessible
or the person will still stay a part
of your group and just fade to the
background and no longer do anything with the
group or try to do very little as
possible and that's going to be a clue
that the group is not accessible now I
want to spend just a little bit of
time here at the end of my podcast
why am I having this conversation because this
ties into grief coaching this ties into yoga
philosophy the you know ahisma non-violence do
no harm this ties into the natural world
this ties into everything and so just because
this is maybe a it does not apply
to the work that I do what it
means is that this conversation I think needs
to be had at this moment in time
because there's an awful lot of people feeling
left out of an awful lot of spaces
and there's things happening again I'm in the
U.S. there's things happening on the federal
level that are drastically impacting certain marginalized communities
that people not in those communities have no
clue that this is going on and is
eugenics is genocide is not good and so
the one thing I would say is that
if we start thinking about our community and
thinking about reaching out to others in our
in our small community whatever your group is
you know a book club a pride organization
a you know after school gathering you know
whatever that community is a fan club of
some sort a group of people that meet
at a coffee house on Saturday mornings or
Sunday mornings you know your church or religion
whatever you whatever organizations whatever communities you're involved
in even beyond pride if you start to
think about how can I make this better
for neurodivergent people for disabled people for queer
people for people from the global south when
you start thinking about that then when when
you start thinking about that you make that
space a little bit better and that eases
the pressure on those communities and helps them
feel a little more wanted so I guess
this falls under you know my my thoughts
of just be kind it costs you nothing
to be kind it costs you nothing to
say hey we have created this event does
anybody see any problems with it as far
as including other you know groups of individuals
as far as including some of our our
people who may have you know mobility or
disability issues it costs you nothing to be
kind and so I think that is a
good place to leave this pride episode and
we'll see about next week's show if maybe
I can talk a little bit more on
the subject as I mentioned at the first
of this episode thank you so much for
listening please don't forget to like or follow
wherever you're hearing my voice and this is
on the Muse Charmer media network and stay
tuned because there's some exciting things happening on
that network and I hope you'll join us
there thank you.
You've been listening to the Feathermane Soul Wisdom
podcast hosted by Kit Kaelstow.
Learn more about Feathermane Soul at feathermanesoul.com.
As a wild spirit storyteller, Kit is passionate
about helping those who are neurodivergent, disabled, or
living with chronic illness rediscover their own inner
wild spirit.
Visit feathermanesoul.com to receive free gifts or
book a free call with Kit to discuss
how Wild Spirit Storytelling can help you.
Music is Running with the Horses by Purple
Planet Music.
This podcast is hosted on the Muse Charmer
media network.
Find out more by visiting feathermanesoul.com and
following the links to the Muse Charmer network.
Please don't forget to like, subscribe, or follow
wherever you're hearing my voice or tell a
friend who may be interested.
Thank you.