Category: Stories

[00:00:00] Ela: Holi holi, and welcome to Building Blocks and Puzzle Pieces. This is a Rain or Shine podcast, and I am your host, Ela Miranda. I’m so excited to welcome you here under our umbrella and to dive into how to build your own accommodations, the building blocks you need to get there, and the puzzle pieces that you might need to solve along the way.

[00:00:17] Today’s episode we’re gonna talk about the most important tool in your toolbox.

[00:00:23] I feel like this is one of the things that is often the most difficult for people. I genuinely believe that everybody inherently has an idea of the things that they can do to make their lives easier. But a lot of what I’ve seen is that we have internalized ableism. We have a lack of access to resources. And so even if you do intuitively know, What it is that you could be doing in order to make things easier. A lot of times we either don’t allow ourselves those accommodations, or we just genuinely do not have the resources, whether that’s time, money, or energy to be able to actually implement those necessary changes.

[00:01:04] So the first step that I recommend to people is, Literally reflection of any kind. Usually when somebody says they’re interested in working with me, I invite them to spend a week or two reflecting on their actions as well as any ideas that might come up as they’re reflecting. And I really try to encourage people to experiment with this process, right?

Maybe you wake up one morning and you’re like, fuck. I just like have no motivation whatsoever to open my journal and start writing in the ways that I have previously, so, what can you do then? how can you take that act of reflection and recording your insights and do it in a different way? One of the things that we’re gonna do when we work together is come up with lots of different ways that you can do these necessary tasks in a way that is easy for you.

[00:02:00] Because one of the things that neurodivergent people often struggle with is routine, right, if you have ADHD doing the same thing over and over and over again is so hard. And so, not everybody is going to feel this way, but if that really resonates for you. And even if it doesn’t, right, like even if you have some other, like, I have depression. And so there are days where like I wake up and I just can not get out bed, so. Do I have access to these things from my phone is really important for me, right? And do I have access to different methods from my phone?

[00:02:42] Because some days, you know, I’m gonna be able to journal in notion and it’s gonna be great. And some days the idea of opening notion and seeing my to-do list like really freaks me out and that cannot be my first step for the day. So then what do I do? Right? Do I go to Finch? Do I go to my. My notes app, do I make myself a sticky note with my reflections.

[00:03:03] You know, like do I maybe make a voice recording? Like there are so many different options always in order to solve our problems. And sometimes just like having a list of all of those different options, making those different options accessible to you, so that you can kind of pick and choose when one of them seems inaccessible to you for whatever reason is so helpful.

[00:03:28] And I have some other tips and tricks, right? Like, one of my favorites, so sometimes having a menu is like the most helpful thing, and sometimes having a menu of different actions to take adds another choice to your day. And that can be really, really difficult, right? Sometimes it’s like I just, I don’t wanna make the choice.

[00:03:45] Like I think I can do the action, but the idea of choosing how to do it is too much. On days like those, I personally use an app called Pick Me. But I’m sure there, there are lots of different options. If you’ve ever seen a giveaway on social media, right? Where people input lots of different usernames. They put them all in a colorful wheel and spin it to choose the winner. I do that for my to-do list, for my like, action menus.

[00:04:12] I input all of my different options, put ’em all in a colorful, fun, spinning wheel, and then I literally just have to click a button and it chooses it for me. And it’s really, really helpful because there are a lot of times where I’m like, no, I cannot choose a thing. It’s too hard for me to choose a thing, but I also cannot do the same thing.

[00:04:32] And there are lots of different ways to use randomizer, lots of different options. I personally like this app because they also have the, eight ball style, yes or no, right? Like I can click a button and it’ll tell me yes no, maybe, right? And sometimes that’s, you know, that’s a tool to have in my toolkit.

[00:04:49] And sometimes that’s really helpful.

[00:04:51] But the point, right, is that you have so many different options. There are so many different ways in which you can solve all of the problems that have come up for you. But until you know the problem, it’s really hard to know what tool to use, and that’s why reflection is so important.

[00:05:09] A lot of the language that we use here at Rain Shine is associated disabilities. And we do that intentionally, because it’s really important to me that you feel understood and you feel accepted when you work with me.

[00:05:25] I wanna make it really clear that like it doesn’t necessarily matter if you have access to traditional methods of acknowledgement or confirmation of a specific diagnosis. One of the reasons why I stress self-reflection and self-knowledge so much is because our medical system is incredibly inaccessible . And so, I never want you to feel like you have to have access to that in order to gain accommodations, because I don’t believe that’s necessary.

[00:06:00] At of the day, regardless of what anybody else says about you, your knowledge of your needs is what’s gonna be the most important baseline to work with. I can sit here and spout ideas at you all fucking day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything because I am not living your experience. So, maybe, you know, you don’t need a bunch of ideas. Maybe you are the kind of person who has a million ideas, and what’s really important for you is to be able to record all of the those ideas and have somebody assist you with implementing them. Right? Maybe what you actually need is somebody to be like, yeah, that’s a fucking great idea.

[00:06:42] I can’t wait to see what you accomplish and what you create for yourself so that you have that feeling of accountability and you actually get some shit done right, at the end of the day, the point is that accessibility is a need for everyone,

[00:06:58] regardless of whether you consider yourself disabled or not. Everybody has a unique perspective. Everybody has unique needs, and you are going to need some kind of accommodation for those needs. I feel like the difference between someone with a disability and somebody who feels comfortable in the world that they exist in is typically that the accommodations you’re looking for have become normalized to the point where you don’t necessarily recognize them as an accommodation.

There’s a really good post that goes around. I’ll have to see if I can find who actually created it, but, It talks about how if you have a vision impairment of any kind, you don’t go, oh, you should just stick it out. Right? Oh, you don’t need glasses, right? You’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see and you are a danger to yourself and others. You go get glasses, right? And there are lots of different options for how you can do that. You can have contacts, you can have glasses, you can have glasses that you only wear sometimes you can have reading glasses.

[00:08:01] Like there are lots of different options for that. It is an accommodation for people who have a visual impairment and it’s just become so socially acceptable that you don’t necessarily see it as this different thing. You don’t see it as something that you should be shamed for having. It’s just normal.

[00:08:20] And so, I think this is like an aspect of ableism that a lot of people struggle with, especially when you first get diagnosed with a disability or you first recognize that you have some kind of accessibility need, and it can often be really difficult to advocate for yourself and gain those accommodations, but at the end of the day, you deserve to live a life that is accessible.

You know, at the end of the day, you deserve to make things easier for yourself because life is fucking hard, there are so many difficult things that we do on a day-to-day basis. You don’t need to continue adding to that list when there are accommodations that are accessible and even when there are accommodations that are available. The goal here at Rain or Shine is just to make those accommodations more accessible to as many people as possible.

[00:09:11] And we do our best to accomplish that with you rather than for you, because I genuinely believe that you already have the knowledge that you need. You just need to understand how to identify it, and then how to identify the needs that you have and how to build those accommodations for yourself.

[00:09:32] Something that I really stress when I start working with people is the fact that in order to build accommodations for yourself, you need to have data about the life that you’re living, the business that you’re running, whatever aspect is that you are attempting to change. So that is why the reflection process is so important, because you need to have.

[00:09:53] The right language around your needs to be able to advocate for yourself and be able to build the accommodations that you need. So I really, really stress you need to be able to record it in some way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be written, there is a lot of focus on, written word as a data point, especially in Western societies, but having an audio file works just as well, right? Oral traditions are just as important.

[00:10:26] The point is that you need to be able to come back to it, right? Because self-reflection is only as helpful as your review process.

[00:10:38] Self-reflection is incredibly important. And until you’re able to implement a review process, it’s very difficult to use that knowledge in order to implement change because it’s really easy to stick to the same actions. An object in motion stays in motion, right? If you already have patterns of behavior, patterns of thought, it’s really easy to stick to those.

Even if you are inherently aware of those thoughts and maybe how they are not serving you until you have a process of review to go back and like Build awareness around the thoughts that you’re having, the actions that you’re taking, and how they’re implementing the results that you’re seeing. It’s gonna be really difficult to know exactly what to change, where to implement different tools and different processes and different thoughts to gain different results.

[00:11:31] So whether you are in an audio file, whether you are utilizing an app or a different tool, or if you’re like writing things down down sporadically in a notes app the point is that you need to have some process of review and my argument is that you need to be able to make that fun.

Unless it is a joyful and exciting process for you, you are just not going to do it. reflection and review is difficult especially when it comes to emotional processes, past trauma, like there are a lot of things that sit behind the actions, other thoughts that we have, and confronting those is often really difficult.

[00:12:15] That’s the experience that I’ve had. It might be different for you, in which case, fucking fantastic. Reach out and talk to me about it, please, because that sounds really cool. How did you get there? I would love to know. but yeah, like the best way that I found to be able to utilize reviews and to be able to reflect on my own processes, my own systems, my own patterns of behavior and thought has been to make that shit fun.

[00:12:41] I personally utilize a lot of habit and action tracking in order to like gamify my life. Gamification is probably one of my very favorite tools. Um, It’s something that I’ve utilized a lot in my marketing actually because,

[00:12:59] I’ve done a lot of work for schools and businesses that cater to families and If something is fun enough to catch and holds the interest of a child, it’s gonna have a lot more success. And I utilize that principle on myself because, I also am a child in a lot of ways, right? I have to know myself well enough to know what brings me joy in order to make things fun for myself.

So at the end of the day, like a lot of that for me comes back to inner child work and just like, What are the things that brought me joy as a child? They’re typically the same things that bring me joy now and how can I provide access to those things for myself since I am now an adult with access to money and choices. Right. Can I buy myself cool fidget toys? Can I give myself fun rewards every time I hit a milestone? Or, you know, do I get a fun treat if I slept for eight hours every day this week? Right? Like, the rewards that you implement are absolutely up to you.

But finding some way to make things fun. Whatever that means to you is my number one tip for success in this area because I’ve talked to a lot of people and often there is a lot of resistance to the idea of review and reflection. And I think a lot of that resistance comes from the shame and the negative self-talk that we are taught.

[00:14:24] I feel like a lot of people have this idea that like, I didn’t do everything perfectly, then I am a failure or, If I look at these results and they’re not what I want, then like I don’t know. I think a lot of it comes back to like personifying those results and making those mean something about you.

[00:14:42] And that’s absolutely not what I mean here at Rain or Shine we always, always advocate for self-compassion and for kindness in the ways that you talk about yourself. I’m going to call you out if you are actively using negative language about yourself in sessions. I will not tolerate that and I absolutely try my hardest to be kind in the ways that I am bringing those things to your attention. But I think a lot of times it is so engrained in the ways that we speak about ourselves and the ways we speak to ourselves that you don’t even necessarily notice it.

I know there are a lot of instances where I don’t notice the unkind things that I’m saying about or to myself, and so having that kind of accountability, having somebody call me out, being able to call myself out when I do notice those things is incredibly important, has been really instrumental in making changes for me. So please know that kindness is always going to be essential aspect of the work that we do.

[00:15:43] And if you find that, you know, you’re trying, you’re attempting to go through this process on your own and it’s difficult to do it in a compassionate way, please reach out. I would love to be of assistance there however possible.

[00:15:56] Yeah, so to review. One of the most important things you can do if you are working on building accommodations is to create a process of reflection and review and how you do this is going to be probably your first step in self-compassion and self accommodation.

Whether you utilize different tools, whether you build a process of gamification, [or] you establish rewards for yourself, at the end of the day, building this habit and this system of reflection and review is going to be the most important part of any further accommodations and systems that you build because this is the foundation, right?

It’s incredibly difficult to know what needs to change and what needs are not being met. If you don’t have a process of review and reflection and some way of tracking the actions and the thoughts and the behaviors that are pushing the results that you see.

[00:17:03] So, once you have this foundation of reflection and review, you’ll have access to so much more knowledge about yourself that you can use to advocate for the accommodations that you need or to build the accommodations yourself. And as always, you know, we’re here to help with anything that you need throughout this process. And since, as you know, accessibility is one of our core values. If you’d like to join a community and play with your systems and play with that practice of self compassionate reflection, you are more than welcome to join us every Wednesday morning at system recess. It is one of my favorite things that we do here at Rain or Shine, and I would love to see you there.

[00:17:46] The link to sign up for that will be below in the show notes. And of course, if you would like direct one on one support with your adaptive systems and building accommodations for yourself, we would love to brainstorm ideas with you and, celebrate the successes that you find.

[00:18:00] So, yeah, until next time, may you find ease and joy in the life that you’re living, Rain or shine.