Hey guys, it’s day 36 of no stimming, I want to talk about socializing and what I’m doing to basically fit in down here in Texas with Misha’s family. The first thing that really helped me was I told her to tell her family that I had Asperger’s. That is the first thing I wanted to get established. Here are Asperger’s tips for Socializing without Stimming.
What that did was it relieved a lot of pressure from me so I wouldn’t have to act around them. I wouldn’t have to be, you know, energetic or extroverted or if I wanted to go in the other room and relax or unwind or breathe, then they would understand.
You see a lot, in society, people throwing around labels all the time. But in a way, it does help. So I used the label to my advantage so I could basically move in here at my own pace and acclimate to being around people again because we came from North Carolina.
I was home alone. I was home alone for like three months at a time. The only time I saw people was when we went into town. But, you know, Starbucks drive thru doesn’t really count, running into getting our mail didn’t really count. So it didn’t really scare me.
But moving down here is a whole new game. But here’s the thing guys is that, you know, a lot of people are so wrapped up in their own life right now that they’re really not thinking about you. So you have to remember that, it’s okay to look away, it’s okay to just inch your way through a conversation, then just start small and work your way up to longer conversations with people.
For instance, right now we live in this back room here and what I’m doing is, I will go into the main part of the house, and say hi how are you, to Misha’s sister and her husband, and do a little bit of small talk, make coffee. I try to hold contact with them as much as possible. Then if I feel a little stressed out, or I’ve had my limit, I just go back here and do my thing back here in the back studio. I’m not forced to sit down and have dinner with them.
In fact, they’re so busy themselves they don’t want to sit at the dinner table, he’s a truck driver so he’s gone for a week at a time, and she’ll just have dinner out on the couch watching TV, most people are watching TV or they hardly even look at you. So I would just give yourself a break if you’re stressed out, if you want to fit in.
Asperger’s Socializing without Stimming
Just remember that most people are so wrapped up in their own life right now they’re worried about money. They have their own increasing anxiety, they have their own depression, and I’ve been noticing that a lot of people don’t hold contact that long.
It’s okay to break eye contact, you can look away, you can say, how your life is going? Then when they’re talking just nod and you can look away a little and then look back and just ask another question and then nod and look away, and that should be fine.
But here’s the thing is that it’s all about your thoughts, and there’s two ways to look at it, you can get self conscious, which we all can be very self conscious, and you can say they’re all talking about me, you know, they know I’m weird. They know I’m different. You could go down that rabbit hole but you’re going to cause a lot of anxiety.
If you go the other route, you can say, I’m part of society just as well as they are. My right to live is just as big as there is, you know, I deserve to live, and whether they accept me or not, that’s up to them, but I am here, just show up, just like they used to say in your job or in P.E class growing up, just show up. Do what you have to do and get out.
So, it’s incremental, you get to take your time, it kind of starts slow. You might have a lot of nerves. Okay, what you can do to calm down, even if you’re talking to someone, is take a deep breath. They don’t have to see you take a deep breath just breathe in, and when you breathe out, try to breathe in five seconds or four seconds and when you breathe out, picture that there’s roots coming down from your feet down into the earth.
You need to ground all of this energy and you need to flush out any anxiety, any adrenaline, nervousness, whatever. When you breathe out actually visualize it going down through your body down into the earth. Okay, you’re going to use Mother Earth as a nurturer, okay. She’s going to nurture you, and she’s going to mulch all of that energy. Okay, this is called grounding work. I know it works because I’ve heard many people talk about breath work, grounding work, and inner child work.
And if you don’t feel safe, It’s probably because you’re in your mind more than in your heart, and you’re not grounded, so if you want to get grounded and feel more solid around people, you might want to visualize that grounding technique where your feet are literally growing roots down into the earth and planting you and securing you.
You can also bring energy up from Mother Earth, nurturing gold light. Just when you breathe in picture golden light coming up from those roots and filling your whole body with healing gold light.
Okay, so you breathe in, and then when you breathe out, you can visualize dumping all that negative energy back down into Mother Earth and she will mulch it, it will get turned into the soil into the loving bosom of Mother Earth and I know that sounds kind of funny but if you go to any counselor, they’re probably going to teach you about ground work, inner child work. So it’s not a waste of time.
If you can sit still in the morning, and maybe half an hour at night and sit down somewhere private, and just visualize the roots going down to Mother Earth down into the core and lock in your roots. Then from there you can bring in energy from source, which is the top of your head, the universe can come down and will go through your crown chakra, so you can breathe in energy from the universe down through your body, and you can ground that energy.
The other thing you can do if you’re talking to someone and you get overwhelmed, this is what you say to yourself, while you’re talking to them, You say: I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. And just repeat that to yourself while listening to them.
Remember to nod if they’re talking to you, just a little nod not a big nod. Okay. When you do that, this is a technique called Ho’oponopono, and you’re basically giving that person, compassion, empathy, and you’re giving them love vibes, so they won’t feel your nervousness.
Because there’s two states: you’re either in love, or you’re in fear. Now Ho’oponopono gets you into love and into compassion. It gets you into empathy. So when someone’s talking to you. Just nod and think to yourself, I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Just do it from the bottom of your heart, be sincere, not outloud, just to yourself, while they’re talking.
What that can actually do is it can turn negativity into positivity. I mean, my fiance and I do this all the time. We ho’oponopono strangers. We Ho’oponopono people that are negative, and lo and behold, the situation usually changes to the positive within 20 minutes to an hour.
If it’s a real bad situation like you have a nasty landlord or something, it could take several days but if you do it with the intention of sending love to someone, love and light, then they will change without you talking to them. It’s very powerful because we’re all connected.
We’re all connected to a network, and when you put love into that network, it will come back to you. Okay, there’s yin and yang and there’s karma. Those things are actually real.
The other thing is the power of intention. So if you intend to become a grounded loving person, then guess what, if you keep intending that every single day when you wake up in the morning, you say that to yourself I intend to be a loving and more compassionate person today. Guess what’s going to happen within a week or two? You’re going to notice that you’re going to have better communication with people, you’re going to feel more grounded and you are not going to freak out as much.
The last thing is you got to stop sugar, you got stopped caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, all of those things are just racking your nervous system and making you very nervous and anxious. So the first thing that you can switch which is really easy is your sugar, switch into stevia.
You can buy a bag of stevia at Walmart, it’s going to taste a little different than sugar the first week, but then you’ll get used to it. Then slowly start cutting out cigarettes. Now if you’re a coffee drinker, you can switch to yerba mate. It’s a clean energy and it doesn’t leave you jittery. We did it for a couple days and it completely changed how our nerves were. So, look into that.
If you’re smoking cigarettes, get some Nicorette gum and cut back on your cigarettes. If you have an important meeting, or you have to see people and you’re very nervous, don’t drink coffee before you go see them. Just skip coffee until after your meeting, then you can treat yourself to Starbucks or whatever. But if you have to go around people and you’re nervous do not drink coffee in the morning.
Okay, those are my tips today I hope this helps. Things are getting better. I’m talking more, I feel more grounded. I’m still twitching my feet at night, under the covers. Kind of makes me feel good. I know it’s kind of like stimming, but I only do it for like 10 minutes. That is all I am doing right now, everything else has gone. You know, I went from 14 hour days of rocking back and forth to 10 minutes of, you know, twitching my feet in bed so making some good progress.
Pat yourself on the back if you see any positive improvements, give yourself some credit and pat yourself on the back. I hope this helps. We will talk to you soon, like and subscribe to this blog and we will see you back here soon.
Read my full story HERE.
