Mar. 2025: Let’s experiment!

Spiritual care, creativity, rock climbing & more

Dear friends,

Spring weather has settled in where I’m at, and I have been more settled as well. Buddhist meditation has been very good for me. Even though I do not meditate for as long as some of my classmates do — they sit for often half an hour or more at a time — it has a grounding effect that I’m starting to really appreciate. I feel tempted to deviate from my routine at times, but I try to remind myself of how pleasant it actually feels to be in the meditative state. The inertia of my AuDHD can make it hard to initiate activities that I’m “supposed” to do even if I enjoy them. Yet during a whole-day singing festival that the youth choir I accompany hosted, I found that taking just a few minutes to meditate before the concert refreshed my energy and allowed me to play with more attentiveness than I otherwise could have. So I’m keeping up the routine as much as I can, along with meditating for brief periods throughout the day as needed. My class has been looking more into Daoist meditation now, but the professor has instructed me to stick with the Buddhist practices as they are more grounding and thus more suitable for people like me who are apt to get excited or agitated. Even Buddhist meditation can sometimes be too much. Today I wanted to meditate for additional sessions, but my bodymind is already too excited with spirituality and creativity. So I spent some time lying under my weighted blanket, which helped.

The first of several items of good news: I have officially been accepted into the Spiritual Counseling specialization within my graduate program. This means that next academic year, I will be taking courses in counseling skills and global wisdom traditions. This specialization is not a licensure program, so it will not prepare me to offer licensed psychotherapy. But I think that might actually be an advantage for what I want to do. I have an idea of working as a spiritual counselor using more of a peer support approach to guide people whose experience of mental health conditions interacts with spirituality to safely explore and integrate their experiences. I would work specifically with people who are already in psychotherapy, so that I can offer a complementary service and really specialize in this type of spiritual care that is normally missing in conventional mental healthcare. I myself can have intense spiritual experiences when manic, and I have longed for some sort of guidance on how to safely explore spirituality when I am prone to potentially dangerous — or at least disorienting — altered mental states. That is part of why I’m doing this graduate program. But then, when I realized how difficult it is to find care practitioners who are experienced in working with the intersection of spirituality and madness, it occurred to me that I could grow to become such a practitioner myself. Thus I am seeking training in various ways to be able to help others, which also requires me to be attentive to my own spiritual and emotional growth.

I had an essay published online by Friends Journal, a Quaker periodical, as part of their March issue on neurodiversity. “A Person of Yin and Yang” is about my spiritual journey as someone with mixed neurodivergence and includes suggestions for other Quakers for how to be inclusive towards neurodivergent Friends. (Despite the similarity in title, this essay is very different from my essay “Reclaiming My Yin and Yang,” which was published by Mad in America in 2023 and which explores a way that I have understood my madness and neurodivergence independently of diagnostic labels. I proposed a different title for the Friends Journal article, but they changed it to one which probably is more eye-catching than the one I had proposed.) I was pleasantly surprised that the essay was accepted for publication and am also pleased that this is my first published piece of writing for which I received more than just a few dollars of compensation. I encourage you to read my essay and explore the other articles on neurodivergence even if you’re not a Quaker, as much of what they say about neurodivergence applies everywhere. (Shout out to my fellow young adult Friend Daniela Salazar Monárrez for their enlightening essay, “On Hating Music”!)

Last Friday, I tried indoor rock climbing for the first time! (Or at least the first time in a long while — I vaguely remember climbing some rock wall as a kid, probably as part of some special event.) This is part of my exploration of what physical activities are currently suitable for me as an autistic person sensitive to environmental stimuli. I had a lot of fun both with low free climbs and high belayed climbs. I got to the top of one of the high walls that was more suitable for beginners, overcoming my initial panic about reaching such heights. I do not currently have a lot of arm strength, so I tired pretty easily, but I was surprised at how much I already can do. My arms still feel a bit sore from the exertion, but I am looking forward to climbing again. There are two points of caution, however, for figuring out when is best to go. It probably would feel stressful for me to go when there is more of a crowd, but the only time when there would not be a crowd of kids and families would be Friday afternoons, the only weekday afternoons they are open. Additionally, as a pianist I need to be careful not to hurt my hands or wrists, and even without getting hurt, having just worked out my arms makes playing piano feel a little weird. When you climb, your arms work against gravity, but when you play piano, your arms must work with gravity and not hold extra tension. Perhaps the physical sensations will just take some getting used to, but for now I should best avoid climbing when I have a bunch of piano activities coming up, such as the upcoming weekend, when I will have two separate gigs to play at.

Indeed, I signed up for a lot of piano playing in the next couple months. I have to learn a bunch of mostly new music for my gigs next week. One of them is a rehearsal for a musical theatre cabaret that is happening on April 11th at the Media Theatre in Media, PA. I’m playing for the performance of an excerpt of Judia, a new musical about social drama in the context of the Spanish Inquisition. The music is mostly modern-sounding with references to the Baroque. Tickets for the cabaret and other events for the New Musicals Festival can be purchased here. I will announce a few events coming up in May in the next Update.

I finally convinced my mother to explore something creative: learning to crochet. Unfortunately, she picked a project from a crocheting book that ends up being more complicated than it initially seemed (it’s primarily single crochet stitches, but it involves diagonal stripes, so the first few steps are unusual and confusing). I ended up having to try to help her with the project, but to no avail. Learning crochet with the Woobles was so much easier because they had video instructions. How does one learn such things from a book, even one supposedly designed for beginners, especially when the projects use crochet shorthand without accompanying pictures? If we can’t figure it out from the book, I think I’ll encourage her to find an instructional on Youtube, maybe even one in Chinese. But at least she’s trying.

My mother has long wanted us two to have a strong relationship as mother and “daughter.” Regardless of what we call it, and even with continuing difficulties with understanding each other’s worlds, we’ve definitely grown closer, supporting each other in our personal endeavors and with our unique health needs.

This Month’s Essays

Since I haven’t been posting Featured Creators for a while, I decided to feature a friend of mine who is just starting to write on Substack. The Irish-like tune adapts and expands text written by my friend Derek to make a pretty and somewhat melancholy love song.

A Contemplative Offering

Some people critique the concept of neurodivergence, pointing out that no one is perfectly “normal” and everyone has unique qualities that can conflict with social expectations. “Special needs” ultimately are just needs, and everyone is something special. What are your special needs? Are they currently being met in your life?

Given the practically infinite diversity of human minds, how can neurodivergence be usefully defined? I have my own ideas, but I’d love to hear yours.

Harmony, health, and happiness,

Margin | 天涯