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[00:00:00] Hey sibling. Welcome to the Unmasking Unschool podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Shaeri. AKA solar flare. We are all solar flares. Defying the gravity of group think, beaming frequencies that disrupt the airwaves. And in this podcast, I share perspectives and reframes from the solar system. A liberatory framework for creative autistic folks who are seeking another way to see, know, and be yourself.

[00:00:30] You are not here to fit in. And the radical re-imagining of how to honor all of who you're here to be begins within. Hey, sibling. So today's. Episode is all about acting on your intentions. If you haven't yet listened to last week's episode, I encourage you to give it a go set aside 45 minutes to get really clear on what you want your year to be.

[00:00:59] And so last week's episode is a episode to guide you through laying that out. And yeah, so this is, um, all about that and I'm gonna talk about. What is known as executive function, and in typical me style, I am really put off by these kinds of words that become popular around neurodivergence being autistic, whatever, and.

[00:01:29] So, yeah, in typical contrarian ways, I want to rebel against that and not talk about executive function. So I'm gonna talk about it, but then I'm gonna get it, give it, give you my flavor of it. Right. And before we dive in, I wanted to frame that with just zooming out a little bit and speaking to what I would offer is the five ingredients to craft a self-fulfilled life.

[00:01:59] Right. So how do you get there? So this is what I would offer. So number one ingredient is who and who being you. Who are you? How do you see yourself? What are the beliefs? What are the stories you tell yourself about who you are? And making sure that those are intentional, right? That those are chosen, that they reflect how you want to feel about yourself, that they support and.

[00:02:26] Um, nurture and make sense to you in terms of who you are here to be, not just who you misunderstood as or who were you in your past when you weren't supported, or how are you misrepresented in the culture and so on. Who do other people project onto you that you are? So really cleaning out the lens with which you see yourself.

[00:02:51] And unpacking that, right? So who making sure that who you think you are is conducive to who you are here to be. So ingredient number two is what and why. So what do you want and why do you want it? And so last week was really about that, right? And giving you, um, some support around knowing what you want and why you want it.

[00:03:14] This can be really hard when you are used to. Being so sensitive to what other people want or other people's agendas or, um, yeah, and really not ever really having the space and the encouragement and the tools to be like, whatever you want, you can have, you can create. So often a lot of us have a lack of belief that we can just decide what we want and then go about making that happen.

[00:03:47] And then the why piece is a really important part of it. And I'll get into that in a bit in a bit. But knowing who you are, ingredient number one. Ingredient number two is knowing what you want and why. Like what is your desire? What do you want? What are you wanting to make happen? And then ingredient number five is how so.

[00:04:09] This is really coming to clear understanding of how do you best work, what are the structures for how to live your life that work for you? What is your particular path to get there? And asserting that right, and being clear and self-empowered that yeah, you have permission and it's, it's something that that makes sense to you, even if it doesn't to other people.

[00:04:38] So those first three steps, the who, the what, and the why and the how are really what the solar system framework addresses the solar system being the thing I talk about in these podcasts. That is a, a, a kind of framework for self-growth, right? And for unmasking, for knowing who you are and how to make this life work.

[00:04:58] And. So, and in the solar system, each of those three are broken down into three more. So that makes nine. Uh, so that is the nine planets. Then ingredient number four is community, a, k, a, your sensory siblings, people who get you or someone in your life. And it could just be one person. It could be one person and your cat, whatever it is.

[00:05:24] Having people in your life that are. Able to witness you that you don't have to pretend to be something you're not around in order to make sense of them, right? And that you have some kind of human container within which to be seen and feel seen and understood. And this is really why the solar system, in terms of the program that I offer that takes you through that the community aspect is really important.

[00:05:53] Like the fact that it's a group. That it's a space where you don't have to pretend to be something you're not. And you have that, um, sense of you have that experience of cognitive empathy, right? I can read you, I can get you your experiences, make sense to me and I make sense to you. That does so much healing just in of itself.

[00:06:16] And there is one final ingredient, which is support. Support to execute. On your what and your why. This is the executive function piece I wanna talk about today in the solar system. We've just had a workshop called Make It Real, and this is the beginning of a new bunch of stuff that I'm gonna be adding in for actual tangible support for the executive function stuff.

[00:06:42] And I'll get into what I mean by that. But I'm really excited about it and I'm really. In the dreaming up of what would be the ideal scenario, and I'm inviting siblings in the program to feed into it as to what they would most benefit from as well. It's funny, I asked Chap, GPT just to go on a side tangent and it came up with roughly the same answers of the ingredients I've just given you.

[00:07:08] Just laid out very differently and in a different language and not in my style and. It's interesting, right? I'm looking at all of this technology and thinking whether some of it will end up being really useful, kind of cognitive extensions or assistance or executive function support, and I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm watching it with curiosity.

[00:07:34] I think possibly having us each having a, a personal AI assistant and. Being able to train our own AI in very bespoke ways might be part of the future. Right. And in fact, Google's already developed an AI personal assistant tool, but they never released it yet. I dunno why. Um, but yeah, there's so many like fractally expanding implications of all this technology.

[00:08:08] Yeah, that I'm, I'm looking at and wanting to stay on top of and, and understand. For me, technology is neutral. It's just a tool and it's the intention and the action that you do with it that makes it good or bad for me, technology is how you organize something, how you structure it in order to create agency rights.

[00:08:30] So I would say. A beehive is technology. It's a structure. An ant colony is technology. A record player is technology. It's like structuring material or environment or thinking to then enable you to do something. People who think with uncommon perceptions and who perceive different experiences, right? And and sense.

[00:08:57] Sense. Different things need. Uncommon organizational structures to make sense of it. Right? So the thinking, the doing, the knowing that creates agency has to be different. We, we are, in my mind, are differently organized thinking and perception is a call to develop technologies and structures and ways of doing things and ways of relating people to people.

[00:09:29] Which, uh, is also could fall under that technological definition, right? So we need different ways of doing it. So anyway, philosophical, tangent over, um, how to execute, how to execute on your intentions, how to structure things, and what support structures to would help make it real. Um, this being part of the solution, I don't think it's a massive part.

[00:09:58] I think it's an overblown part and that the mindset piece and the self-acceptance pieces are way bigger, but it is a part of the solution. Right. And so this is part of what I'm building into. The next level version of the solar system, which itself is always evolving. Every year it undergoes its own evolution, and that's because I get more nuanced, more people join the program another year of coaching.

[00:10:28] And so it's getting more and more clear, more and more specific people are getting faster and faster results. And so, and then I'm updating videos and so on and, uh, yeah, I, I kind of. Love doing that, but it's also very invisible to the outside world. So I wanted to just share that this is where this thinking is coming from, but also share some, some of it as I go along to benefit you as well.

[00:10:59] So my goal really is to create something that is really the best in the world for people who fall under that kind of autistic status. And who are creative, who are ideas, people who have vision or imagination, or a desire to innovate or to create something that didn't exist before, or share a new, unique perspective or, you know, people who think with their bodies as well.

[00:11:28] And so my goal is to create something that is like the most affirming and transformative container and support system. That caters to these differences because of what you'll then create. And that's something that really motivates me is like imagine all of the possibilities that get to then be realized and materially real when we are not caught up in all of the.

[00:12:02] Difficulties of that are presented to us by this kind of industrialized and normative culture. Right? And the designs that have been structured around it. So that's, um, that's my what, that's my why that I'm working on with the solar system. I don't think there, there is a coaching container with the nuances that I have in this.

[00:12:27] There is no coaching certification that is tailored just for autistic status brains. The way I break it down, I'm inventing the models and frameworks and this is the point, right? It's like there's so much more to you than reasonable adjustments to the status quo. There's so much more that's possible.

[00:12:50] When we're imagining beyond the past, beyond, um, what is so, and also we're alive right now at a time when we have so like mind boggling amounts of choices and options and examples than the generations before, right? If you are alive right now, you have options that are. I think really hard to grapple with.

[00:13:18] Anyway, coming back to the point of the podcast, I haven't felt ready to add in this element of supporting the getting it done until now, right? Until I've feel like I've cracked the code on my own. Executing, executing. Executing. Executing right, executing of my own intentions. Like I'm three years into doing this work.

[00:13:45] I'm not one bit burnt out. I'm loving all of it. My life, my work, it's working for me. So that feels really significant because of how much I didn't feel that way and I didn't have that. So I wanted to share out loud some. Thoughts on this and on this executive function stuff and how we can have these big dreams, but there's also the belief piece of right.

[00:14:14] The belief is gonna be low because of past experiences that show you perhaps that you can't get things done that you intend, or that intentions are always. Met with, uh, other people taking issue or that, uh, somehow they're always just thought with the structures that come at you not fitting with it, or you are trying to, you haven't yet figured out your way of doing it, or you're kind of always in the fight of against there being a right way or there being a right timeline or.

[00:14:54] Or it's not doing it at the level that you would want to, or in your terms or in ways that are sustainable that don't lead to exhaustion or burnout. And consistency is also a piece, right? Consistency. I used to understand it as, oh, I need to be doing the same thing every day with the same type of output.

[00:15:19] And it, you know, it has so many ties to like productivity and your value is in how productive you are. And you have to be this machine and you have to be predictable and we are just not right. But there is, uh, a way to get to consistency depending on what's driving you. So much of us, uh, get into being driven by either this idea that we're not enough and so we are lacking something.

[00:15:48] Or self admonishment and trying to like get ourselves to do things and like that punishment, reward system, that behaviorism or it's excitement, which is really fun in the beginning, but it doesn't last. Right? Or we find the next new exciting thing and then we've dropped that one. So none of that is like energizing for the long run.

[00:16:14] And so, yeah, there's a piece on that, which is about maybe consistency through those means of getting things done, of executing on your intentions doesn't work, right? So you build up a belief that, well, I can't do it. But actually consistency of knowing why you're doing it and of your vision and of your intention is a completely different angle on it that, um, that is effective, right?

[00:16:43] All of this is also coming from years of, uh, and experiences of like, for example, being a freelancer and self and being in freeze. Like I just didn't know what to do or where to even begin to start on my big dreams. And the more I thought about it, the more overwhelming they seemed, right? It's like the planning, turning into over planning.

[00:17:08] And so there's so many elements too. Learning how to get stuff done intentionally that is chosen, that gets to the intended end, and not doing it through overwork, not doing it through pushing your own limits or force or self admonishment or excitement, none of which lasts. And so, yeah, this question of how to translate a big vision, a desired outcome, an intention into.

[00:17:40] The doing of the day to day while not having strong belief that the end vision is possible, how to do all of that has been a personal odyssey and it's really felt like it's the thing between where I was and where I wanted to be. So it's been a personal project for a long time to try and. Figure out this Rubik's Cube in my twenties.

[00:18:05] I began this by watching Tony Robbins videos online, right? I dunno what you think of him, but at the time, that was my source. And you can probably find still on YouTube where he goes through what he calls RPM Results Purpose Massive Action. And that was really helpful because it gave me the ingredient that I still use, which is knowing why.

[00:18:31] So much of the entire self-development field, the coaching field, are influenced and contain his thinking, right? And so knowing what the point is behind the activity or the task itself, beyond a checklist, beyond a to-do list, beyond a should or I have to, or I'm supposed to, and into a bigger purpose beyond yourself.

[00:18:58] Knowing your why. That really was a massive piece. And so that's why I still use that, right? Knowing my why is how I create energy. So what is the point of what you're wanting to do? What is the meaning that you want to give to it? That then creates connection, right? Connection to yourself, to what you want, connection to other people or the planet, connection to something that is bigger than you.

[00:19:27] It creates an energy flow. And so that is a massive part of this that isn't ever as far as I've seen part of the executive function conversation on the internet. So really identifying why. Um, and that doesn't have to be like. I'm here to change the world, make it a better place. It doesn't have to be a big positive pull like that, right?

[00:19:56] Your why can be your pain. Pain is an amazing driver, and if that is your driver, it's a good one because it's still you being in self connection, right? It's listening to the pain that you are in and letting that be the driver to help you solve it. When I say pain, I don't mean chronic pain or physical pain.

[00:20:15] I mean emotional pain. The emotional pain of being left out or disrespected or bullied, or the pain of your current life being so far from what you would choose if you could choose anything. So if that is a driver for you, then, then great. Let that be a driver, right? This isn't working for me. I'm in pain and I'm gonna change it And take in that responsibility for your life.

[00:20:41] Yeah, even if it's not your fault, even if things that happened to you or that you were born into or that are hard weren't your fault, pain can give you a massive source of internal power energy. Alright? So, but there's more to this, right? Because I get to Tony Robbins, RPM bit, the massive action bit, and.

[00:21:05] It was about essentially writing a massive to-do list and then grouping that to-do list around different themes. So I would find that list of actions completely overwhelming and I'd use it to try and engineer self-belief that I didn't have, right, by making it even bigger, completely unrealistic. And then trying to think that, yeah, I'm gonna just become this other person to get it done.

[00:21:30] And obviously that. Didn't work. So there's more to this, right, than just purpose driven, uh, big why focused action taking, and that more has been talked about as executive function deficits or you know, and difficulties for autism people executive function. So what is it? It describes a collection of mental processes that are kind of.

[00:21:59] Uh, it's like the management department of the brain. It's like overseeing what you're doing and then making decisions about what you're doing and then doing them. So things like organizing, prioritizing, task switching, flexible thinking, working memory, multitasking. Impulse control. Keeping track of what you're even doing instead of just getting lost in it, right?

[00:22:27] Starting and finishing tasks, managing time. So all of these are skills for planning, getting shit done. They are things you can supposedly learn. There's a neuroplasticity that the brain has that means that you can develop these, they can be made much harder by high stress environments, right? Like flexible thinking.

[00:22:50] You can see how being around people who keep undermining your own experiences and your perceptions in your worldview might make you hold tight to your own thinking and feel the need to argue for it and be on the defensive and be protective of it. And. You know, like being around people in designs that are inflexible to your thinking, what's that gonna teach you?

[00:23:16] It's gonna teach you to also do the same. And if you're someone who thinks and processes through deep dives into a kind of singular focus, then considering and having an overview of lots of different areas of possible focus. And then trying to figure out and prioritize, especially if those areas are retrieved into your thoughts through connection to the sensory experience of doing them and then trying to hold them all at once and then distinguish which to focus on might just not be how your brain works, right?

[00:23:53] So it's also not that we can learn all of this. It's not that this is something that we just overcome or that we get better at. This might just be. How you are, and I don't necessarily think of this as a deficit or something bad. If you have a different neural wiring, brain sensory perception body minds system, then the way that you structure and you organize and you process, all of this has to be different too, right?

[00:24:24] It's that technology piece, and it can seem that. If we struggle with these things, if we struggle with executive function as I've listed it out, it can seem like we're lazy, right? It can seem like we're bad at life. So maybe you've had character traits assigned to you because of these things being difficult that give you that.

[00:24:47] People have this impression of you that you're selfish or you're messy, or you're irresponsible, or you're lazy, or you don't care, or you're just, you know, bad at everything. But it's none of that, right? It's none of that. It's not a character trait, and it's not that you are bad at life. It's not that there's something that is wrong with you, right?

[00:25:08] It's literally that you are just wired differently. And so the way that you best get things done is going to be different, and it might in some areas actually be enabled by specific helps support structures. Some of which involve other people to get things done or to map out the thinking to get things done right?

[00:25:34] So this is not a personal deficiency or a character deficiency, and it's not something that you have to feel bad about or not like yourself for, or feel like a failure around. It's really about, it's just different, right? It's just different. And there are side benefits to those differences. And, but there's also stigma and the idea that you're supposed to be able to do the same things that everyone else can and the, the things that they need help with.

[00:26:05] Although that's just normal and that's not a deficit. So all it means is that you just require some other routes to agency. So a big part of this then is not feeling the shame, not, uh, falling in line. Not being compliant with, oh, this is just the way things are, but really having the courage and the kind of inner fortitude and self clarity to know this route's not gonna work for me, but this one might work and I'm gonna try it and I'm going to be willing to step out of the, uh, the gravity of the group in order to, um, allow myself the, the.

[00:26:50] The means of giving myself more agency. And then there's another piece which is demand avoidance. Like when our habituated response to external expectations in all forms comes from, you know, a long lived history of expectations being completely mismatched for our own readiness. And sensory adjustment time and processing, then we can start to develop a relationship with all expectations that they are something to resist, that they represent demands, including our own internally, uh, defined ones, right into including goals and intentions that we have that no one asked us to do, and we've just decided.

[00:27:44] And then suddenly they feel like they, they carry this idea of like, something to resist and rebel because suddenly there's an expectation. So the important bit is that it's the intention, right? The, the intention and knowing what you want and why is the bit that stays consistent and is the point. Not the goal itself, not the deadline, not the to-do list.

[00:28:16] When all of the end result and the goal and the to-do list and the deadline and the dates and the, and all of that becomes why, then it's completely demotivating. So that stuff has to stay flexible and it's not entirely in our control. But the thing that you can stay. Uh, close to and attuned to, and keep connected to is what you want and why.

[00:28:44] And okay. And then finally, um, what none of executive function acknowledges is that we are systems thinkers, so we don't think in tiny silos or experience and then manage them from above, but we think in connection, right? Connection between all the parts of something. So executing a linear to-do list is just not gonna work, right?

[00:29:11] It's, it might work for a day or two, and, but it becomes about that to-do list, right? It becomes about checking off the list unless that list and the activity is something that repeats, that is a groove, a pattern that you can get into. So setting up systems and creating patterns for executing is far more effective.

[00:29:34] Then thinking in silos of experience or activity and then arranging them into a linear to-do list, and then having all of the transitions and the, and the, yeah, the movement through that list is just completely overwhelming. So there are strategies, right? Another one, working memory. So this is like, can you remember the start of a long sentence by the time you get to the end of it?

[00:30:02] Nope. So for me, holding lots of linear details in mind without the bigger picture and the map is hard, but give me the map and the system and the context and I'm the opposite. I can remember at incredible levels of detail. I can remember sensory experiences from years ago and recall the entire thing. I can think in entire 3D images, right?

[00:30:31] So that might not be your particular flavor, but the point is that our linear working memories is low. Our ability in that regard is low. But you can likely have completely other ways of, um, thinking and processing that are the opposite, that are strengths. So it's about where are your strengths and your strengths are going to be the areas where you are energized, where things make sense, where things flow, where it feels good, and things that are your weaknesses are gonna be where there's a lot of frustration.

[00:31:09] There's a lot of, uh, cognitive blocks and difficulty getting things done. Task switching is another one. When we learn and process through immersion in an entire experience or subject or area of focus, and it has, uh, it has sense within it, right? It has connections and congruence and patterns within it.

[00:31:31] Then we get absorbed, right? We get immersed, we think through immersion and all of that extra neural connectivity that you have gets satisfied. It gets plugged in. Yeah, but that can mean that sometimes it's also really hard to then come out of that and then switch into something completely different. So then the less amount of task switching that you can do in a day, the better.

[00:31:58] And it can also mean that we sometimes get emotionally invested in the thing that we are doing, because it becomes our whole world for a moment, right? When we're inside it and doing the thing, it becomes everything. Yeah. And so a side note is that sometimes that everything also enables ways of avoiding other things that we don't wanna attend to that are more difficult, that are more emotionally difficult.

[00:32:25] And yeah, so there's another piece of this as well, which is that sometimes we go to the things that give us that satisfaction, but at the avoidance of the areas of our life or the tasks or the things that are difficult. And so we, yeah, we can end up with being real deep experts in certain areas and really stuck and in trouble with other areas.

[00:32:54] And for people who don't think that way, there's a, there's a mismatch there. They're like, well, how come you can do this? And yet you can't like do the washing. So. This is all part of it, right? And so mapping out and figuring out the strategies, setting up systems, knowing what your strengths are, finding ways to structure it are all a big part of this.

[00:33:23] There's another piece which is also, um, the nervous system regulation stuff like when my, when my kid's ill, and they're home at home and they're sleeping. I'm extremely focused when someone's in the room, but they're not doing the same thing as me. I get stuff done. So some of you have a, a cat or a pet and it provides some of that, right?

[00:33:45] Body doubling is another thing that can be done over a Zoom call that's similar. So this kind of settling of the nervous system in order to move through a thing to completion is another, another piece. So anyway, in the solar system, I'm having lots of ideas around. Supporting, uh, setting up systems or supporting, organizing the thinking of the things to be done, but also creating context, like having a, a, a space to strategize on how you can create more context for your industry or your goal or the field that you work in, or a specific life structure.

[00:34:29] And so on. So I'm gonna keep reporting back on this and share a bit later down the line, but I wanted to kind of share some of this thinking at this stage, documenting as I go, because I really think that this is a field in its infancy. There are apps and stuff. Really an app is just a tool, right? That facilitates external thought of some kind.

[00:34:54] But I think there's so much more to it and some, some of that more is other people is having the space to maybe like, oh, I just need to talk it all out and then have someone look at that, that talking and that thinking, and have me work out what my priorities are. So the solar system, it's a lab for all of these things.

[00:35:16] It's an incubator for. Nurturing and finding new ways of structuring and supporting all of this, and some of it is humans helping humans and having these interdependent structures for the doing, the executing of the intentions. And then that means that the more and more able we are to not get stuck and to structure life so that we are in our strengths most of the time.

[00:35:44] The more that we are doing that, then the more. The actions that we are taking, the doing the material reality around us start to become more accurate to the potential that we have, to the inner knowing of who you are and the experiencing of who you are, when you're not over adapting and when you're not just being, uh, a lesser version of what everyone thinks that you're supposed to be able to do.

[00:36:13] Right. And then when you're seeing on the outside, the impact of that is when you start to build the kind of self-belief that comes from ex that that creates a kind of external confidence, right? Which is like, no, I'm actually starting to make inroads. I'm starting to see progress. I'm starting to build momentum.

[00:36:37] I'm starting to be able to focus more and more of the things that are important to me and. The faith, the belief, the commitment then starts to build and you're doing it not from a place of burning out or being overloaded, but of energy generating connection to what you're doing, why you're doing it. So I hope this has inspired you to look beyond the idea that executive function deficits is a kind of full stop, end of story, and instead is just the beginning.

[00:37:11] Love you Lots talks. Bye. Thank you for listening to this week's Unmasking Unschool podcast. It means the world to me that you and I. Are in orbit. You can join my mailing list and receive other resources and insights and stories for your journey of self becoming. And if you're ready to go deeper into this work and you're looking for support to implement it all and activate your future self, I wanna invite you to join my six month online unmasking unschool.

[00:37:40] It's called the Solar System Plus siblings. You can. Unlearn the habits of self negating and hiding. Create the worthiness, self clarity and self-belief to then go and create culture shifts. First in your relationship to yourself, and then riffing out into everything you do and beyond. Click the link in the show notes for all the info, and I will see you in sight.