Find the Right Role Models

When you put other people down, the positive feeling only lasts temporarily, and you don't get a positive response from others; Focus on your own uniqueness, and not comparing yourself with others. Thinking you're better than others. You're in for empowerment instead of en-cower-ment. Congratulations on your courage and welcome to the party. We're going to have great fun together! The Trio of Turmoil This article is about handling neurotypicals. It's a survival guide for the neurodivergent in a human world (by definition) predominantly populated by neurotypicals. And we'll get to the practical details of that very shortly. But even more than about neurotypicals, this article is about our unhappiness as neurodivergents. And if we don't understand the root causes of this unhappiness of ours, we'll never be able to really do anything about it. Unhappiness is never created by an external factor alone. You are not better than anyone else, and no one else is better than you. This is a universal truth that all should embrace. When you start to tell yourself that you're better than other people, then you're essentially trying to replace your feelings of unworthiness with the unhelpful belief that other people are not as good as you. This tendency will ultimately make your relationships worse. Again, you should focus on your inherent value and uniqueness instead of trying to make yourself believe that you are above other people. Truly masterful people are so convinced of their own self-worth that they actually want to encourage others to have a masterful life too. People pleasing.

Often, people who are chronic people-pleasers also have a chronic and deeply-felt dislike of themselves, to the point that they feel like they have to win the approval of others. Often this dislike is subconscious, so you may not be aware of it. However, you do not have to be desperate for others to like you and approve of you. It's always an interaction between this external factor and our own way of functioning. I'm not going into a cheap glass half full, glass half empty rant. I'm talking about a deeper psychological and neurological level. Certain traits in you, in your brain and behavior, lock into certain characteristics of something outside you in a certain way, and this specific relation is what causes you to be unhappy. Not you, not the neurotypical in front of you, but the way your respective characteristics lock into each other. In order to change this, you can try to change the external factor (which is very difficult), you can try to change yourself (which is arguably even more difficult), or . After decades of wading through my own happiness and unhappiness, and those of others, I discovered that all forms of unhappiness are rooted in the three fundamental mistakes described below. Actually, you could write them with a capital M, `Mistakes'. Because they're big, they're bad, and they're extremely common. Which may sound scary, but it also means that correcting them is the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to make a new start and completely change the ball game. Whether they do or not does not change your own inherent value and self-worth. Refusing constructive criticism. Everyone, without exception, has some areas that could benefit from some improvements. This is part of what makes you human. The consistent development of a person is a part of their ultimate destiny. No one ever totally arrives at it, as self-actualization is in the process. When you refuse constructive criticism, it signals that you believe critique means that you're inadequate.

Change your beliefs to include the more helpful alternate belief that everyone needs healthy constructive criticism to become unstuck and continue to evolve as a person. Don't be ashamed of your shortcomings or try to use perfectionism to cover up weaknesses. Instead try to recognize them, receive constructive criticism, and grow in the process. By eliminating these Type Zero Errors from our minds and lives, we lay the solid foundation to make the powerful, genuine, and lasting changes to our lives that we really need. If we omit to adequately tackle these Mistakes however, whatever we do to become happier and more empowered will be fruitless, because we'll be building a house on a swamp, or treating the leaves of a tree while there's still a disease in the roots. So let's get to it and clean house - thoroughly. Root cause #1: The Perception Paradox Hyperdaltonians I could go into a very long, very metaphysical, and equally boring oration on how we, humans, just like every other life form, only perceive a tiny fraction of reality. Which would be better written as Reality, with a capital `R', to distinguish it from plain, day-to-day reality with a lowercase `r', if you `see' what I mean (pun intended). The first, the sacrosanct one with the capital `R', represents `Ultimate Reality', which no life form consciously perceives and even less processes. The latter with the modest lowercase `r' represents the heavily filtered, twisted and almost stripped bare dimension in which we butter our toasts and wipe our butts (and occasionally poke our finger through the paper too, that reality). If you need more convincing of the basic and undeniable fact that we only discern a tiny fraction of reality (both with uppercase and lowercase `r'), think of all the electromagnetic wave frequencies we are happily oblivious of. Avoiding failure or rejection. If you're constantly living life in a manner that you think will help you avoid failure or rejection, then you will probably benefit from revising your thoughts and creating some healthier alternatives. Temporary failure is inevitable at times and rejection may rear its ugly head periodically. However, you must learn how to tolerate the distress and keep moving forward or else you'll end up being stagnant out of fear of failure and rejection. Avoiding emotions. Trying to block emotions is not healthy, nor is it something that is sustainable long-term. Having a wide range of emotions is a part of the human experience, and being strong doesn't mean avoiding them.

Allow yourself to fully experience negative emotions and then use strategies to change the situation or change your thoughts about the situation. Trying to control others. That is not your job. We only perceive a tiny spectrum of them because we only have two very limited electromagnetic wave sensors in the front of our head (we call them `eyes' most of the time). They react to wavelengths somewhere between 380 and 740 nanometers only. Everything above or below, including man's best companions WiFi, microwaves, a lot of stuff only hardcore scientists talk about during their nerdy dinners, and then a lot more stuff even they haven't even started to conceive, is completely outside the scope of our perception, our existential dimension, our `reality. Other animals have different windows on `Reality,' which makes their `reality' significantly different from ours. But none have the complete package, if that would even be conceivable. If you could at this very instant see all the electromagnetic waves around you, instead of just the tiny window from what we call red to violet, it'd be like an acid trip multiplied by a thousand. And that's just sight. Add to that all the sound waves, all the smells, etc, you'd become even more stark raving mad than you already are (proven by the fact you're still reading this). You get the point. We're like hyperdaltonian (aka color blind) little shrimps in a violent ocean of crazy movement all around, in and through us, most of which we are very happily very unaware of. You do not have to prove your significance by trying to make other people conform to what you want. Instead, focus on your own self-improvement. Over-defending your self-worth. No one is saying you have to be a doormat for others to stomp all over, but if you find you are compelled to always defend yourself, then that's an indicator that you're struggling with self-confidence. If you are okay with your own inherent self-worth, you won't feel the need to constantly defend yourself. Don't allow yourself to become outraged every time a person says something about you that you don't like or offers an opinion that differs from your own. Instead agree to disagree, tolerate any negative emotion, change how you think about your own inherent self-worth and keep moving forward with your goals.

Remember, you can show yourself respect even if other people don't respect you in the same way. Blaming other people for your problems. Of course, you have had your share of difficulties. Just like you can't really explain sight to those who are born blind, a life form with drastically other perception organs couldn't possibly explain the parts of Reality that we cannot biologically perceive, even if they tried. So, already in that sense, the world isn't what we think it is. But this small metaphysical excursion is just the appetizer. Now for the main dish. A model of the Universe the size of the Universe Yes, we're getting somewhere practical, bear with me a little longer. So, in theory we perceive not all that much, but still a lot of light frequencies, a lot of sound waves, a lot of perceptions, tastes, smells, etc We have the hardware, the sensors for it. All together it's only a small fraction of `Reality' (as explained above), but still, it's a lot. It's reality, with a small `r', everything around and in us for which we have sensors. It turns out however that, for practical reasons we'll come to in a minute, we only process a tiny part of reality and lose most of the rest of it. In fact, more than half the American population has had some traumatic experience, so you are in good company. What separates people who accomplish their goals from people who don't are their attitudes and behaviors. Do not blame nature or other people for your problems. Don't blame your past, genetics, hormones, or anything else for what you're currently experiencing. Focus on accomplishing your goals and don't get sidetracked by playing the blame game. Don't take yourself or life so seriously Understand that you will make mistakes.