Honoring your brain

Maybe you noticed I skipped last week.

There were two primary reasons that I did not feel able to write.

One is content. I was planning on spending more time on capitalism, and how it combines with racism as part of dominator culture. Writing about my job woes seemed like a reasonable springboard for that, and it is always relevant, but I think I need to spend some time on more emotional things.

The other is more technical, in that even though I had this idea for the switch, no words were flowing.

One of my job woes is less time for reading, where it wasn't even strictly time so much as the mental capacity and energy I had left after a work day or week. 

I have been doing really well recently at seizing time here and there and making progress in books. I have been taking in a lot of information.

It put me into this state... I am not sure that the right word is overstimulation, but there were too many concepts coming in, and not enough getting out.

That sounds like blogging would be an antidote: get some thoughts out. 

I do get into states where my ideas on a specific topic are very clear, and then writing about it is easy. Lots of thoughts on multiple topics does not flow.

Sometimes I will make lists, perhaps with little drawings, but this time I did a journal session where I was alternating between scheduling which e-books I was going to read and thoughts I'd had during my scripture study and which Marvel series I wanted to watch and my worries about the dog, plus working out the songs of the day.

It went on for four pages. It helped, though I believe I need at least one more session like that. 

On frequent thought lately is that you can't do everything. I don't like giving things up, but I keep having to do it. 

When feeling like I was actually getting better at accomplishing some of my goals there, but that it was possibly taking me away from other things (like being able to blog or even write a coherent journal entry about an emotional issue), that was a real concern.

It looks like I can maintain this pace, but it requires writing out things that I have been able to mentally track in my head or at least on a spreadsheet. There are more now.

I may still have to slow down some of it, at least to incorporate other things. However, it is helpful to understand how your own brain works and what it needs.

I suppose it is a form of self-care. Lowering my expectations could be another form, but does not seem to be the most needed form at this time.

Remember when I was telling mission stories? It took me a long time to figure out how to study Lao effectively for me. It turned out that I needed to write it. I remember someone had given us a box of old church magazines and I really wanted to spend time reading them (perhaps it was book withdrawal). If I had just realized sooner, writing translations of them would have been perfect. It would have given me new vocabulary and writing it out would have reinforced it in my brain.

When I was in school, before that, other than maybe an hour in TAG talking about the differences between visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles, we didn't really talk much about how to learn. Much like sports, it seemed like you were either good at it or you weren't. I was a natural at learning; sports not so much.

Learning was so easy, but I would periodically hit snags that I had to work out on my own. There was very little helpful advice out there.

Some things I have figured out by overanalyzing everything, but following a lot of neurodivergent people on Twitter helps. I don't even know if it is that I get that many tips, but it has done a lot to eliminate worrying about what is weird and normal or right.

Don't sell yourself short; you may just not have found the write method or combination of methods yet.