Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope today’s newsletter will bounce us up as we contemplate the upsides and challenges of being neurodivergent, a little beauty, some creativity, and just general yeehawesomeness.

Table of Contents

• Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

  • Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope t …

• The 11th W

  • Emotional Dysfunction, What’s Your Function?

    • Yeehawesome!

  • Wonderful Wednesday

  • Today’s Beany-full Summary:

The 11th W

Do you recall the 10 Ws I recently wrote about (from Diana Butler Bass)? No worries if you don’t.

I don’t remember a lot of stuff.

Here’s what I said about them in my Beany-full Summary in my #28 newsletter:

I’m trying to practice them all. Or at least remember a few of them.

And this week I’m focusing on an 11th W.

We’ve got a lot of this W currently. I mean a crap-ton.

Its form the past 3 weeks here in our neck of the woods is white. It’s cold. And it has to be shoveled at least several times a day if we have any hope of getting our car out of the driveway.

This W is snow.

Water as revealed in snow.

I’m letting the snow remind me that water is life.

It’s a big cold reframe.

Water for me this week means:

• Drinking more water. When I’m cold I don’t feel like ingesting much water, but drinking it warm out of the tap helps. So does water in the form of herb tea. (Helpful side note: Drinking warm water helps me swallow vitamins and pills easier than drinking cold water.)

• I don’t know what button I pushed, but my SAD light (I call it my happy lamp) is now making swampy frog sounds when I turn it on. I can’t figure out how to turn off the frogs, so I’m accepting it as another reminder of water. Warm water.

• Listening for water sounds. It helps when there’s some snow melt. That’s a good sound!

• Ambling through the snow to our indoor city pool in our neighborhood (while getting to the pool I get in some more Ws: walking and wonder—saying hi to my Penelotree is always a highlight). The pool is heated by burning garbage at the recycling/garbage center behind it, and it’s loooovely. Funny true story: When I went on Tuesday last week a grandma walked up to me in the pool. I’d never seen her before, but told me she hadn’t seen me in a long time. It’s true that as gaijin we really stand out. Plus I don’t wear my glasses in the pool so it’s perfectly possible that I’ve spoken with her many times. The pool is my happy place, especially when it’s super snowy and nobody wants to drive there and I have it almost all to myself. I can pool walk, swim, float on my back and listen to my breathing with my ears underwater, and cook myself in the three different hot pools (38 degrees C, 40, and 42).

Not all neurodivergent people feel this way, but I find being in water extremely calming (as long as it’s warm enough and not too cold). Stick me in a bathtub, shower, pool, hot spring, hot tub, river, lake, or ocean, and I’m happy as a clam. I (usually) don’t even mind doing the dishes, especially in winter when I can get my hands in that sudsy hot water.

So we’re now up to 11 Ws. Can you think of any more? (I did mention in my last newsletter that one W could be whistle. I just wish I could!)

Emotional Dysfunction, What’s Your Function?

Emotional mood swings with neurodivergence are fun.

Real fun.

While I’m also co-regulating with others around me.

My title above is just a rhyming joke, by the way. I’m actually talking about dysregulation here, not dysfunction.

Dr. Sharon Saline says this about emotional dysregulation:

Yep, it can be tricky, especially with perimenopause and exhaustion thrown into the hot bubbly mix.

Let’s get right into the tools she suggests.

1. The 5-4-3-2-1 strategy:

   Name 5 things you can see

   4 things you can touch

   3 things you can hear

   2 things you can smell

   1 thing you can taste

2. Take off your shoes and socks; feel the ground. Balance on one foot and then the other and do this five times.

3. Swing your torso. Stand with feet shoulder width apart and swing your arms around in unison five times.

4. Breathing: 4-4-6 style. Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4, breathe out for 6, pause, then repeat. (I normally do 4-7-8, but I tried this 4-4-6 way and like it better. Now I have to retrain the brain.)

5. Exercise! She suggests walking, standing and sitting down 5 times in a row, stretching, or clenching and releasing your fists.

6. Use the STAR approach to take a pause in the heat of the moment: STOP-THINK-ACT-RECOVER.

7. Call a support person (therapist, friend, someone you trust). Write down two names now so you have that to refer to in the future.

These are just a few ideas from Dr. Saline to try. I tend to do the breathing, walking, and exercising (usually pool walking or dancing at home to my favorite Spotify homebrewed playlist). I’ve also used the 5-4-3-2-1 method in the middle of the night when I wake up with anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

Have you tried any of these methods? What works for you?

I can’t imagine that these ideas will totally rearrange your life and make you not neurodivergent or not anxious, but maybe a bit of pausing will soften things. I hope that for all of us.

We all deal with stuff. I hope this segment of my newsletter will provide some encouragement and support for those moments when we feel especially discombobulated. My prayer for us is combobulation. No dissing. Just kissing our inner child’s cheek and saying it’s going to be OK.

Yeehawesome!

Yeehawesome! is a happy-brain roundup in each issue of Beany Brain. What’s happening that’s good in brain land? What’s bringing me joy?

1. That green color right there makes me happy. And a gregarious grouping of green is gorgeous.

2. I’ve mentioned Abstract, the Netflix show about design, many times in my newsletter. After watching one of the episodes about a font design company, Hoefler & Co., I signed up for their emails. Boy, are they great. Fonts rock my boat, y’all—they’re so yeehawesome! Check out their “Fonts for Cartography” section too (I used to want to be a cartographer).

3. This is so sweet: an autistic boy who loves buses was happily surprised by his mum’s photo on a bus advertising a charity she works for. And up until only two years ago he was nonverbal. “It’s the best day!” I want to be like him when I grow up.

Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness

Wonderful Wednesday

Wonderful Wednesday was a day once a year in college when they would suddenly and surprisingly call off all classes and we’d play all day. The cafeteria provided special fun food and we’d do stuff outside like slip ‘n slides and jello wrestling in sumo suits. This segment of Beany Brain is dedicated to that memory of silliness and fun—no words, just a photo from the week that I’ve taken or found that reminds me to let the joy in. Since Beany Brain is published on Wednesday every week (at least, Wednesday in Japan), I hope you enjoy this Wonderful Wednesday.

Today’s Beany-full Summary:

• The 11th W is water, I’ve decided. How can water help you feel calmer or contribute to your happiness and wellbeing this week?

• We can practice some pausing with various techniques: 5-4-3-2-1; breathing; body movement; contacting a support person.

• Go forth in Beany joy. What will help you feel yeehawesome this week?

Thank you for reading this installment of Beany Brain! You’re very welcome to hop on by any old time.

If you’re enjoying Beany Brain, please share with a friend or seventeen at www.beanybrain.com. Cheers big time!