GROW | Your Strengths; Identifying, embracing and celebrating your neurodivergence

This article includes a LEARN video and resources for you to focus on your strengths and consider how you can make the most of them

Dear neurokin,

In our final Belong…we are neurokin article of this year, I want to encourage you to create space so that you can reflect on;

• illuminating your strengths - especially the things you take for granted

• what your strengths give you and the world

• space to really acknowledge and celebrate those things: your strengths are both wonderful and unique to you

This article is packed full of thought provoking questions for you to create a new perspective on your strengths and will naturally inspire you to utilise these things, to take action, as we go into 2025.

This month’s learning session is also wrapped up within this GROW article.

I’ve wanted to be in conversation with this month’s guest for a while now.

On a grey August day, as I waited on a soulless modern train platform, a burst of colour and energy came out of my phone screen.

It came from a post that Claire from Neuro by Nature posted, one of her first, talking about her alternative way of working with clients; not your typical therapist.

So much of what she said resonated; but mostly her unique strengths and pride in her alternative way of living and working resonated and inspired.

As I contemplated how I could create an interactive learning experience for you about your strengths, without the challenge of gathering a group of people in one place at one time, Claire popped into my mind.

Because if anyone can help you to illuminate your strengths, particularly those that come from your wonderful alternatively wired brain - to help you to embrace your neurodivergence, it’s Claire.

I came away from this conversation feeling energised and inspired.

I think you will too.

Here’s just a few of the tips Claire shared with us in this conversation

• Stop thinking typically! If you want to eat desert before dinner - do it!

• If things don’t work as you wanted or expected them to start your own version of V.A.T - Value Added Thinking. Consider what you can take away from each experience.

• Don’t undersell your strengths - utilise them for you.

If you have any questions for Claire after watching this conversation you can contact her here

Identifying your strengths

“Curiosity and a desire to understand how things work, how we can make improvements to efficiency and flow, are strengths and traits found in many an autistic person.

In a world where compliance is the dominant force in institutions, organisations and society, questions are rarely welcome. Especially when your questions illuminate the absurdity of certain actions, the waste and the undoubted failure that will happen if we pursue the ridiculous!”

from This Is Who I Am | the autistic woman’s creative guide to belonging

So often, we neurokin take for granted our strengths because our natural ways are not always valued, or welcomed in environments where alternative thinking is considered inconvenient.

Our natural curiosity and ability to see the patterns and connection in things comes with ease.

This strength, that comes with ease, can mean we have to have to find and use energy in taming our questions or insights to be more palatable to those hell bent on maintaining status quo.

My first request of you, to illuminate your strengths, is: