Cultivating joie de vivre

As an autistic person, I find there is a definite link here between my particular wiring for high sensory processing, which can make me feel more overwhelmed than some other people might be in the same situation, along with a tendency to live in my thoughts way too much, plus also the need to actively process those senses though my body in such a way that the body fully registers them, but without overwhelm, on the way through…because, otherwise, I can tend to bypass the body altogether. Not least because of issues with chronic pain, learning to bypass the body can become a really big issue. What I need is exuberance, joie de vivre, activities that ground joy in the very cells of the body...and I suspect a lot of people (not least those who live too much in their heads) are needing that right now too!

Walk your own pace

We all adopt these paces in life; finding our groove...are we happiest in the fast lane, are we more middling or are we slow and steady. Should I say, we should find our own groove...yet so many of us live to the pace that is expected of us (or one that was set for us by the metronome of our childhood or cultural entrainment) and this "wrong pace" for our constitution can make us so unwell in the long-term; burning us out or even slowing us down to the point of long-simmering frustration with a life that doesn't keep apace with our longings and aspirations. When we pitch it just right, we land in our sweet spot, and our natural melody of life simply comes forth, asserting over the noise of everything else that may be going on. Our tempo may change according to time of day or the season but the key thing is that we are hearing its direction from somewhere within and then attuning ourselves to it, listening for the clues of our inner conductor as we swell our sound or soften it in ways that feel the most natural to our innate constitution.