Buddhist Principles for Autistic People

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to my friend, autism, a podcast providing validation and support for autistic people and their loved ones. With more than a few passionate rants thrown in for good measure. And now, here's your host, that autistic guy, Orion Kelly. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome, my stars, Orion. Thank you so much for being here. I'm Orion Kelly, that autistic guy. I'm all about providing validation and support for autistic people and their loved ones. And I'm doing absolutely everything in my power to get you a podcast today. There's nothing inside me that was ready to go. Or, you know, I'm going to be a great host. I'm going to be a great host of autistic people and I'm going to be a great host of autistic people and I'm going to be a great host of autistic people. And I'm going to be a great host of autistic people and I'm going to be a great host of autistic people. And they just say, I'm going to try anyway. So here I am. It doesn't matter. Forget about it. I don't need you, pitty. I'm here, my friends with another podcast and audio podcast to listen to wherever you get your podcast or a video podcast to watch on my dedicated podcast YouTube channel. I want to know what what should we call it? Okay. So my name is Orion Kelly and it's only for podcasts. What should I call that channel? Orion Kelly podcasts. Gold brilliant well done, Orion. And welcome back my friends to what we now know is your number one autism podcast on planet earth. Now on this podcast because I really am pushing. I really am pushing my friends. I really am trying to beat the battle of my own brain against me. I want to do something very different. I want to talk about Buddhist principles. Okay. I'm not talking about chanting mantras and I'm not by the way, I'm actually not talking about religion. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to convert you. I'm not trying to tell you your religion is bad. It's got nothing to do with religion. In fact, what I'm doing is this is very autistic. It's a very autistic thought, a logical thought. I just want to share some of the key principles of Buddhism and how they can actually help the autistic mind. How they can actually improve your life as an autistic person. We're not trying to change who you are not trying to change your bring up religion. We're simply not. We're simply not. And by we, I mean me, whoever else wants to pop up during this broadcast. Though seriously, how can Buddhist wisdom help autistic adults thrive in a neurotypical world? In a world right now that you might not be very happy living in, you might feel very horrible in the world you're living right now. I think these can help you. These principles have helped me. Do they help me every day? No, why? Because I've got an autistic brain that is constantly trying to sabotage my life. But I tell you what, I really, I really think if you can just hear me out, at least one principle will help. I genuinely believe that and that we're not trying to fix you or change you. Okay? Just help you beat yourself. And I think frankly, that should be a really big thing. If I said, hey on this podcast, I'm just going to share some stuff I reckon will help you be more yourself and thrive. I don't know who would go, oh, you know what? I'm out. I mean, idiots would, morons would, but very rarely do we get autistic people in that category. So let's start with the first Buddhist principle. It is a big one. It's Dukka. It's spelled DU, double K, H, A, Dukka. What does it mean? Okay. So life is inherently uncomfortable. And that's okay. So Buddhism says that life involves suffering. Life involves discomfort. Life involves dissatisfaction. That is life. That is inherently life. And it's not personal. It's not your fault. Actually, it's just part of being a human. Now, have you ever had a day where you're feeling discomfort, dissatisfaction, you know, they're suffering inherently feeling uncomfortable about you and your life? And have you only allowed your brain to blame yourself? How often, seriously, how often as an autistic person would you say your autistic brain only blames you for the dissatisfaction, discomfort, suffering in your life? I mean, I'm going to say probably every time. But the principle of Dukka says, no, no. It's actually part of being a human. Do you, I'm leaving gaps purposely. Do you hear what I'm saying? Has it got through yet? Is it resonating? Is it ringing your bell? Is it hitting hard? Your life is inherently uncomfortable. And not only is that okay, it's actually part of human life. It's not your fault. Another gap, because I think they're more valuable than me feeling them. Because as an autistic person, we spend years thinking our life is so hard and we are so bad. And why? Because we must be doing it wrong. As an autistic person, don't you just spend your entire life thinking why is life so hard? Why is life so uncomfortable and so hard and so bad and so crap house? I know why, because I've got an autistic brain. Because I was born with a different brain. I'm the bloody reason. I'm doing something wrong. What's that? Being born. Not dead air. Gaps to process. What do you mean, Orion? I do a podcast for autistic people. Yeah, but it's a podcast. You can't have dead air. What's dead air, by the way? Basically, it's gaps of silence. Like, if you were listening to the radio, and there was a few seconds of silence, they'd class that as dead air. Now, what's fascinating to me is that means they're saying gaps of silence when you are broadcasting audio to people are very bad. It's so bad, you might as well pronounce it dead. Now, think about it from an autistic brain. How often does someone ask you a question? And after awkward silence, they go, "Sorry, are you listening to me? Did you hear me? Did you hear my question?" Or they just repeat the question. More silence, repeated again. More silence. You'll have a question. Right? In fact, there's nothing dead about a few moments of silence. In fact, there's nothing more alive than that. That's when humans come to life. When they're thinking, feeling, emoting, processing, anyway, I'm not going to. I've gone off on a rant that has no relevance to this and I'm very sorry. But it just shows how ridiculously outdated and quite irrelevant. Industries like the radio are that a small portion of nothing, which actually allows people to feel and think, is dead. I mean, anyway, it doesn't matter. It is what it is. We move on with our lives. Okay, so. You know, you're an autistic person, your life's crap. You're doing something wrong. Like, I just wasn't coping as well as everyone else. I'm just not doing as well as everyone else. That's the reason. But no, this concept, the concept of Dukas says, "No, no, you're wrong." Discomfort is part of life. As an autistic person, you may experience more of it than others. But all that means is you actually have the privilege of experiencing life at a different level than others. If you look at it like that, it's not discomfort. It's part of life, especially when the world isn't set up for your brain. So, this principle of Dukas can help you stop blaming yourself for every meltdown. Every shutdown, every outburst, every dysregulated steam sensory overload. The need, constant need for a long time, the fidgety, wiggly behaviors that make people think there's something wrong with you. Yeah, there was still experience them. You will still experience meltdowns, shutdowns, and all the other stuff in between burnouts, whatever. But you should no longer think it's because I'm bad. I'm broken. I'm wrong. No, in fact, when you're having meltdowns, shutdowns burn out sensory overload, outbursts, rage, whatever. You can say, "This is uncomfortable. This is discomfort." And guess what? It's natural. This meltdown, this shutdown, this outburst. This is not unnatural. This is a part of life. It's uncomfortable, and that's okay. There's your first one, my friends. Please stick around. These are great. And this won't be a very long podcast, because I think to listen and process, I can't overwhelm my mind. So, I'm going on the same principle for you. And you're probably less intelligent than me, which makes it harder. Oh, shut up. I'm joking. Shut up. Everyone's lost their sense of humor, apparently. Good God. Okay, here we go. Next up, the Buddhist principle of a nature. A nature. Spelt "an" "I double-ca" a nature. Or, and this is what I like to refer to it as, impermanence. I cannot tell you how often I use the principle of impermanence. No, I'm serious. When I feel itchy, if I have to have some sort of medical stuff done, for example, getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist, imaging, X-rays, CTs, MRIs, whatever. Things that are inherently uncomfortable, I use the principle of impermanence. What does it mean? Everything changes. Nothing lasts forever. Yes, so the Buddhist principle of impermanence or a nature tells us, nothing, no feeling, no moment, no meltdown. Now, being an autistic person, what do we hate? Well, there's many things. But to do with this, Mike, to do with permanence, change. We hate change. It's bloody horrible. And this is saying, guess what? Everything changes. And your thing you will make, you've must have brought up the stupidest principle, the most irrelevant principle for autistic people ever. And that's where I say, shut up. No, I don't say that. Okay, good. I take your point. I take your point. We lie things to stay the same. Predictability. Firmality. Oh man, I said it too quick. Familiarity. See, I can't say it's slow or quick. Stuff you. Predictability. Familiarity. Doesn't sound right now. Safety. Get stuffed. But at the same time, we can actually get stuck in really difficult moments. Anxiety spirals, emotional shutdowns, burnout, catastrophizing, ruminating, going over things from 38,000 years ago, like they're still relevant. I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to go over a conversation that just came back to me that I had 12 years ago. And what does it feel like? It's never going to end. It doesn't matter. My life will always bring up stuff. And I will always go into these spirals and catastrophizing. They'll never end. So this idea tells us, actually, a run, even this will end. Yes, even this will pass. No emotion lasts forever. No spirals can last forever. No shutdowns last forever. No burnout, although it feels like it lasts forever. So in fact, even though we hate change, our brain does the most ridiculous trick to us. And it constantly gets stuck in a loop of bad stuff. Anxiety and sadness and depression and experiences and shutdowns and burnouts. But the principle of impermanence tells us even this won't last forever. That has to help you. Do you know what I'm saying? Because if you're not overwhelmed by something, you no longer have to fight it. You no longer have to stay in this spiral. What you can do is, in effect, you can let it ride itself out, punch itself out, run out of steam. Whatever works for you, knowing that regardless of how it feels right now, it's not going to last. I mean, the point is, let's say you were ruminating over something you said 12 years ago last night. I mean, when you woke up this morning and right now and in your daytime, as it has it never left, I mean, it's left. It's ended, right? You've gone on a something else. So you need to start to work out a way to gently apply that. Gently apply that. Not only to the things we've talked about, but to change. Right? So, okay. Change, yep. I hate it. But you have to remind yourself, even this change isn't forever. So, if I know that this change isn't forever, then I'm pretty sure I can find a way to adapt to it, because it's just this time. Now, of course, you're going to go all around this change all the time. Yes, but every change doesn't last forever. So, yeah, let's say I'm freaking out. I've got to have a CT or an MRI or something. And I'm freaking out in there because every part of it's uncomfortable. I just, I don't know what the word is. I just tried to focus on nothing, but in my mind saying, impermanence. Impermanence. So this will end. Oh, when they try to give you, you know, when you get your haircut, they're like, they wash you hair before they cut your hair. They're talking bad for starters. If I'm getting a haircut, I'm going to wash my hair before I go in. Why? Because I'm not a psychopath. Why? Because I'm not a dirty animal. So why, what are you doing? Is it not clean how many times? Right? And they get you, they put you back in this thing. But I don't know. The only person I can guess who invented the chair to wash your hair at a hairdressing place. Right? Is someone who's original job must have been in, well, it has to be in some form of punishment or torture. The, their only background was in torture and punishment. Right? They must have worked for some government body that's been phased out. Right? And then, then, then your job is, what am I going to do now? I don't know. I've got a great idea. I'll build chairs for hairdresses. Cool. What are you going to do? I'll just use my own plans. What do you mean? You're sorry, you're saying you're going to use your old punishment and torture plans? Yeah, I've got some great chairs. No, no, no, no, no, no. People go to the hairdresses to get their haircut. Yeah, no, no, I get that. Well, they don't want to be tortured and punished. No, no, I understand. But I don't have the time to come up with a new chair. They want to buy a chair. I'll sell on this one. You don't want to come up with a chair that's not punishing and torturous. No. Why? Thanks too much time. This is the guy that invented it. I'm not saying that's true. I'm saying that's my, I'm alleging. You sit back and suddenly your head is into a position which can only be classed as I want to elicit some sort of government secret out of this guy. So I'm going to torture the neck till they feel like their neck's going to crack off their head. Right? And then they start giving you a massage, but that's supposed to help, is it? Did you know what I'm saying? It's like someone, it's like getting someone to punch you in the guts repeatedly while you eat chocolate. Make the chocolate's not going to help. You see what I'm saying? Stop with the massage. But maybe just find me a place where my hair doesn't feel like it's going to dislocate from my neck. It's horrible. This is, this is my vibe when I go on a hairdresser's now. I don't need my hairdresser. I don't need my hair. Drick cleaned. I don't need it. Just come through. No, I'm good. I did it this morning. I might not have washed my hair in 10 years. I'll still say I did it this morning. I'm not interested. Get stuffed. What is your problem hairdressing people? Good God. I'm sorry, but I use the, the before I worked out, I could just tell them I washed my hair. I used that theory of impermanence, which is this can't go forever, but it does. It's horrible. All right. Next one. Can I say this particular Buddhist principle that I really think it helps autistic people? It's deep. So stick with me. What's going to happen is your brain is going to judge straight away. Every time you hear me say what it is, you're going to judge straight away. You might shut off. Please don't. Just stick with me. All right. This one is called, I think it's pronounced anata. Anata. Okay. Spelt. ANA double TA. Anata. And this means no fixed self. So the idea is there's actually no permanent unchanging you. So we're always shifting, evolving, responding to life around us. Now, at first, my brain doesn't like this very much. Okay. Because I'm an autistic person. That means I cling to my sense of self. I cling to what makes me me. My routines, my identity. That is my safety net. Right. In a world that doesn't accept you, you need some sort of net to cling to. But I also spend a long time believing that I had to pick one version of me and stick to it. For me, that might be the high functioning version. The you seem normal acceptable version. The one that the majority of the world, either understands or kind of accepts. Now, this idea of no fixed self actually gave me permissions to be all my versions. What are you talking about, Orion? Think about it. There's shutdown you. There's socializing you. There's burnt out you. There's dysregulated sitting on the couch watching criminal investigation shows for three days of you. Is that just me? Sorry. I apologize. They're all me. They're all me. Right. None of them are the real me more than any others are. Because they're all me. They're all valid. In other words, you're allowed to change. You can mask. You can unmask. Either way, you're doing this and growing. And as you grow, it's all still you. When you start to question yourself, you need to ask yourself things like, who am I right now as in what do I need right now? Not who am I right now as in who am I supposed to be right now? Who am I supposed to be right now? Because that's all about everyone else. Who am I right now as in what do I need for me right now? What do I need for me right now? I was very different to who am I supposed to be right now. I really like this. I really like this. I get it. It's a bit, you know, no fixed self. What are you talking about? But what it means is, okay, so if you're, let's say you're an autistic person, and that's you. But then, let's say you become so dysregulated, you melt down. Now that could be, you know, like rage filled. It could be an outburst. It could be many different things. And once it's finished, you feel nothing but shame and guilt and disgust for yourself. Okay. And then what are you going to say? That wasn't me. Well, guess what, mate? He was. He was. Because you are you and that you caused it. Well, what caused it? Your autistic brain. It was a natural response by your autistic brain. Oh, that wasn't me. Well, it was. And it only happened because of who you are. Right? So this is the kind of stuff that should help you, but also to understand it's not about being who you're supposed to be. Right? It's about doing what you need right now, manifesting who you are through that. Yeah. What that's thinking. Another Buddhist principle. And I think this is quite well known. In fact, it's probably the most famous potentially is mindfulness. Although they refer to it as sati. Sati. Mindfulness. It's I get it. It's kind of trendy. You know, people. I'm just trying to be very mindful. Mindfulness. You know, cool. It's it sounds kind of sexy. But in fact, cutting all that crap away. It's bloody crucial. Because really mindfulness is just about being aware of what's happening. Without reacting. So being present and aware of what's going on right now. Without allowing yourself to simply react. Fly off the hand or whatever it is straight away. And if you're autistic, you probably know how fast things can escalate, especially when you're disregulated. Right? Or you're overloaded. I get it. For me, mindfulness is clearly not going to be what you would class as like a Buddhist monk or whatever. Right? I don't know sitting with their legs crossed on the top of a mountain, a door or something. That's probably not even real. I don't know. That's not that's not it for me. For me, it's simply about trying to pay enough attention to notice what's going on with me and my body. To notice, maybe I'm starting to get wiggly, jiggly. I'm telling you a tense up. I'm going to get fidgety. Before it turns into me snapping. Oh, down shut down our first whatever. Right? That's mindfulness. Okay. I'm getting all agitated and really jiggly. What does that mean? Okay. I'm clearly getting agitated. Right? Okay. What does that mean? Well, I'm obviously disregulated or you know, I'm overloaded. Whatever it is for you. That's mindfulness. Does that make sense? It's actually realizing because you've actually allowed yourself the opportunity to quickly understand yourself. Actually, you know what? I've just realized I haven't eaten today. I haven't eaten in over six hours. Okay. Well, hang on. Well, that's why I must feel so bloody horrible. That's why everything feels so crap. That's why I'm so easily triggered at the moment. Right? It's knowing when you need a stim or have some quiet time. Get outside. Get some fresh air. Move your body. Go for a walk or just completely shut out the world. Take a breather. See mindfulness. You think this kind of trendy sexy thing. No. Mindfulness is in effect. A pause button. So it doesn't fix everything. It simply slows the spiral. This is noticing without judgment. You are noticing what's happening before it ends in a spiral without judging what's happening. And this is simple. I mean, you could do this every hour, every minute, every day, once a week. I don't care. Whenever you feel weird, whenever you feel a bit weird, stop for a second and ask yourself, what's going on right now? What am I feeling right now? What's happening? What what can you sense? What are you aware of? What's happening? Why? Why is what's going on? That's mindfulness. I believe even you could do that. And that's saying a lot. Oh my goodness. All right. A tough one for autistic people this next Buddhist principle is non-attachment. Yeah, non-attachment. So letting go of control. Because Buddhism teaches us to let go of clinging to outcomes, identities, and ideas. In fact, I think this is a really great Buddhist quote. Might even be a quote from Buddha, but it's something along the lines of you only lose what you cling to. You only lose what you cling to. Well, now, okay, letting go of control. Letting go of clinging on for dear life to outcomes. I did that. He's an ideas. Let's stop for a second. If like me, you experience anxiety for me, clinical anxiety, right? On a minute by minute daily basis. People are going to think you are a control freak in a bad way. But I can tell you whether it's your child or your partner. If they experience anxiety, control is nothing about you or others and everything about trying to minimize their anxiety. So for an autistic person to be told they should let go of controlling things, even controlling the controllables. Let alone the uncontrollables is unthinkable. I'm deeply attached to everything in my life. My routines, my interests, my ability to control things to ease my anxiety, predictability. I get it. And by the way, you know, kids, you might have an autistic kid and you don't really get it yet. Maybe you think one diagnosis is enough. But chances are, you know, at some point in their life, they are going to be they could be diagnosed, which may help them with a clinical form of anxiety. It's a tricky thing to grow up with as an autistic person without having legit anxiety. And really, you're going to know pretty quickly because they are like the director of the movie of your life. Everything, it seems like everything is controlled by them. Or they have to go through the same scenario with questions and sentences and he is how it's going to go. But things months or years in advance, I'm talking every minute of the day. Okay. That's that's not them trying to be a horrible control freak person. That is them trying to soothe their anxious mind. But what you have to learn is that clinging to tightly to things can make things worse. Right. If your day gets thrown off and you can't recover, it's usually because you've built up this internal rule that this is how things must go. This is how the day must go. This is the order. Things must go this way. Now, that's very rarely going to happen. But if you've built up that control, that attachment, so rigidly, which is very autistic, very autistic and also based on other anxieties. It's going to be very hard. You're going to suffer. It's going to be a hard life. If you're able to teach yourself to loosen that grip, doesn't have to be a lot. The little amount you can do, the little amount, love less suffering, your experience. You can still like the structure. The routine and the break to bitterly, that's not going anywhere. What you're trying to do is you're trying to learn to hold onto that more gently. Okay. So you're holding onto something for dear life. And I'm saying if you can hold onto something a bit more like maybe you would hold onto a young child's hand. You're not trying to break the fingers. Right. And you're not trying to break the bones in the hand. Yeah. If you can hold onto things more like you're lovingly holding onto a young child's hand, that's probably more the grip of attachment. That's going to help you. It's a big one, isn't it? I get it. I totally get it. Another Buddhist principle that I think can help you in your life as an autistic person is metah, which is ME, double TA or loving kindness. Now, this one is relatively confronting for autistic people. Okay, loving kindness. Why is that a rhyme? Well, it's the practice of offering compassion to others and to yourself. What when the first bit, okay, the second bit, what? Now, if you're an autistic person, especially like me, like diagnosed, you've probably got a very long history of being misunderstood, being judged. And I'm not talking about other people, by the way, I mean, you, you have probably judged yourself horribly forever. You've certainly been misunderstood and judged by others. No question. Okay, but I guarantee you're always really hard on yourself. I'd find it very hard to believe if you didn't have a history of being hard on yourself. In fact, maybe harder than others. Right, there's many reasons. You fail as a person, right? Because maybe you think, oh, well, I never get it right. In social situations, in relationships, in work, I never know the right way to be, to act, talk, to experience. I always stuff it up. I always get it wrong. I'm always melting down, shining down, burning out. I'm never what people say is easy enough to be with or to live with or I'm never, I'm never a good team player or a good fit. They always say that. I'm just, just bloody useless, right? I'm just a stupid, broken, useless human being. No, you're an autistic person in a neurotypical world. But that's what you're saying yourself. That's, that's pretty far away from loving kindness. Right? So meta or loving kindness can help you try to start talking to yourself. Like someone you actually care about, can you imagine if, let's say you have a young child or, right, there's a, there's a young child in your family or in your, you know, in your group, in your family extended family, right? Would you talk to them the way you talk to yourself? Now most people, I would assume hell no, that's ridiculous, but let's change it. The way you talk to yourself, what if I was to say to you, the person hearing it is actually three year old you. Three year old you is still inside you. It's called an inner child. This is just truth. Your inner child, you when you were three is still in there. And it's hearing everything you say about yourself and thinks you're talking to them. Yeah, that's a pause for a reason. When you talk to yourself with judgment and discussed and hatred and horror, you're saying it to your inner child and your inner child thinks it's directed at them. That's how you would talk to your inner child, let's learn another child. No, of course not. Oh, sometimes it's just when you think it, say the reverse. Okay, so here's an example. You think it, say the reverse. Aron, you're not broken. You are doing your best. You are trying really hard. And that is enough. Right? Aron, you're broken. You are a useless piece of crap. You can't do anything will. You're bloody horrible at everything. You're never going to be good enough for this world. You don't want to run. You're not broken. Okay, this is not about you. You are different. You're trying as hard as you can. And that is enough. Right? Big difference here. That's loving kindness. How about this one? This is the idea of the middle way. Okay, so the Buddhist principle of the middle way talks about not swinging between extremes but finding a sustainable balance. Did that get through? Try to live in the middle way. What do you mean? Stop swinging back and forth between extremes and find yourself a sustainable middle ground, a balance, a middle way. Now, would you say as autistic people we tend to live in extremes, I would, I'm all in or I'm all out. I'm in or I'm out. I'm interested or I'm disinterested. I'm burnt out or I'm hyper focused. I'm isolated or overstimulated. I'm regulated or dysregulated. Right? There is no middle way. There is no middle way for autistic people. It doesn't exist. Our entire life is swinging between extremes. Do you understand what I'm saying? Can I get a hell yeah? And the middle way is asking us to try and find a sustainable balance. It is reminding us that you do not have to push until you crash. You do not have to live your life based on going from being regulated to dysregulated. You need to be aware of the middle ground. You can rest before you hit the wall. You can say enough. Right? No more. Instead of yes to everything. Yes to everything. Well, I've got to be accepted. Good luck. Say yes to everything. You will disappear, my friend. You will combust. Right? It's the idea of eating and drinking nothing until you are weak, sick, probably constipated. Right? Not going to the toilet until you just about have an accident. Right? That is as extreme as it gets. It's not natural for us to live in the middle. Right? It's not. That's not how it works for us. Yes, we are going to push until we crash. We are not going to rest or stop until we physically are unable to go on. We're not going to drink until we are dying of thirst. We're not going to eat until probably someone forces us or suggests we or reminds us. We're not going to go to the toilet until we're busting. Right? We're not going to say no to things, even if it's the worst possible thing ever, probably because we're just riddled with guilt and shame of never being accepted. Right? So this one's hard, but we've got to work out of way. Me included. We've got to work out of way to practice the middle way to practice finding that sustainable balance. And the first step is acknowledging everything I've just said if that resonates with you that we tend to live in extremes. What is a softer middle a version of this? That's the question to ask yourself. Right? Regardless of what it is, try and find a softer middle version of what you are experiencing in life. Because I mean, our life is so hard. It is. It's so draining and so hard. I don't understand how autistic kids make it to adulthood. It's incredible. And as an adult, our life is hard. It is so hard. And you know why one of the reasons is because we are that swing from extremes. It's just that I could do a thousand examples of this by the way. It's classic. Right? Like maybe someone you love is talking you about something and if you have zero interest in it, it's impossible to show or pretend to be interested. And that's the extreme. That's the extremes. There's no middle ground. We've got to work through that. And that's it. That's another way you can use a Buddhist principle to really as an autistic person, hopefully find a way to improve your quality of life. My friend autism with Orion Kelly. Join our community on the socials by following Orion Kelly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X. You know what? He's on all of them. So go find him. Now these Buddhist principles, they are not rules. They are not laws. They are not checklists. They're simply ideas. They're principles that can help you unlearn shame. Go better. Live more gently as yourself, not despite being autistic, but because you finally stopped fighting it. So hey, if it's resonated with you, give it a crack. If it doesn't resonate with you, be it about it. Either way, I'm seriously hopeful that something got through and is helpful. If it does, let me know. I'd love to hear your comments. I'd love to hear your feedback. And thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. Until the next one, I'm going. Good luck. Thanks for listening to my friend autism with Orion Kelly. To binge all the episodes, check out the YouTube channel. I'll grab a copy of this book. Visit OrionKelly.com.au. Thanks again. And see you soon.