Examining what happens when we take neurodivergence (and neurodivergent communication) OUTSIDE of the medical model.
A lifetime of experience as a neurodivergent interculturalist, linguist, woman and mother has shown me how separated we become from ourselves, from our nature, and from each other when we allow a medicalized, mostly pathologizing definition of neurodivergence to serve as our template for how we navigate our selves and the way we communicate.
The medical model has its place, but it can't be the primary model of self that we live from. It can't be the system we trust to prioritize our wholeness, or to teach us to see ourselves from within (instead of from the outside-in). And it won't be the system that delivers future-facing, imaginative change.
These things are all and only possible when we learn to inhabit our neurodivergence as a culture.
This process, which I call Neurocultural Sovereignty, involves:
❊ Anchoring our neurodivergent selves OUTSIDE of the medical model, as a culture, and developing intercultural awareness in everyday life experiences
❊ Remapping our neurodivergent traits and behaviors as equally valid and important ways to meet our unique needs
❊ Growing way beyond masking by developing intercultural communication practices that allow us to become more confident, embodied, and skillful communicators
I believe there's a beautiful way to live as neurodivergent people with more integrity and less exhaustion. This is where I share and explore this work.
"We cannot live securely in a world which is not our own, in a world which is interpreted for us by others.
Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to put our ears to our own inner voices, to see our own light, which is our birthright, and comes to us in silence."
Elaine Bellezza
