Before I knew I was Autistic, the question, “How are you?” would spike my anxiety. I struggled with daily tasks like remembering to brush my teeth, and I hated doing it when I did. I often stayed up way too late because I couldn’t tell when I was tired. I resisted things I “should” do but couldn’t understand why. I pushed through pain, exhaustion, overwhelm, and sometimes I barely noticed them. And I burned out over and over.
When I figured out I’m Autistic, I struggled with all of the same things, but I began to understand why.
And after several years of exploring my sensory experiences, learning how to notice what was going on inside, and what to do about it, I finally know how to really answer the question, “How are you?” I figured out ways to manage life that doesn’t inflame my nervous system. So I brush my teeth just about every day. I go to bed when I’m tired. I built rest and energy restoring activities into my life. And so much more. I still get overwhelmed sometimes.
But I know better how to adjust things to work for me, and how to cope when there’s nothing to adjust.
Lots of us whose sensory processing experiences lie outside of the perceived norm, are trained as we grow up to ignore our internal signals of what we need because they’re inconvenient to the people and systems around us. And while that was effective in getting through early life, it leaves us not knowing what’s going on inside our own bodies, or even believing that what we feel is inappropriate, or wrong, like it shouldn’t matter, and that it’s not okay to adjust things to make them better.
There’s a lot of different aspects in there to unpack. I’m just going to address one part of that here.
And that’s how to develop a more nuanced connection between things that happen, and how they affect you by recognizing what is going on inside your body in real time. And doing that without judgment, without shame, without making things feel worse.
So many of my clients struggle with this that I developed Sensory Moments to help grow that internal awareness in a way that is gradual and gentle enough that it doesn’t overwhelm, that’s sensitive to trauma history, and that invites curiosity and openness.
Sensory Moments is a series of emails that are super, super short. They take seconds to read. Each one is a simple prompt about noticing what’s going on in one body part, or what things around you are affecting how you feel in that moment. You don’t have to get up and do anything.
There are no exercises. No goals. No “shoulds.” And no right or wrong. And there are built in options to adapt them to your unique circumstances.
How it works is by bringing your attention to what’s going on in the moment in one part of your body at a time. That’s really all that’s needed to expand your internal awareness. It takes attention, over time, without judgment. It’s genuinely no more complicated than that.
You can figure it out on your own, for free. That’s how I did it. But if little reminders are helpful, or if you’d like examples of questions that are useful in growing that awareness without triggering intensity or demand avoidance, that’s what I developed Sensory Moments for.
If this might be a good fit for you, you can find more info, and the link to sign up, below.
Is any of this familiar?
- Does your anxiety spike at the question, “How are you?”
- Do you struggle with (remembering, doing, hating) personal care tasks, like brushing teeth?
- Do you stay up way too late because you can’t tell when you’re tired?
- Do you not go to the doctor because you can’t tell if something’s an issue until it’s a big deal? (Medical trauma aside.)
- Do you push through pain, exhaustion, overwhelm, satiety, because you barely notice them? Or they don’t register as important?
- Are you burned out and can’t tell what drains your energy and what doesn’t?
- Do you struggle with time blindness?
- Are you trying to unmask but can’t tell what’s you and what’s the mask?
What's going on?
A lot of us who are neurodivergent don’t have a clear sense of what we want or need, because we’ve been trained for years to ignore our internal signals to survive
- in sensory environments that bombard us,
- in capitalist hustle culture that treats people like machines,
- and white supremacy culture that disregards personal sovereignty.
And while everyone is negatively affected by these systems, our more diverse neurological expressions create a more intense backlash.
Being able to push through is useful in dealing with unpleasant environments that we don’t have any control over, but it’s not useful in dealing with areas of life in which we do have some ability to regulate ourselves and what is going on around us. Our own homes, bedrooms, personal care routines, products we purchase, etc.
Gradually developing that internal awareness helps us reconnect meaning between things that happen and how they affect us. Like how it feels when
- we need to go to the bathroom,
- when we want to move something that’s bothering us,
- buy this deodorant instead of that one (or none),
- eat now or later,
- notice how long we’ve been on a screen,
- make a request, etc.
Which is why I made Sensory Moments. To help with this process of integrating your internal awareness, slowly and gently. (Fast and furious doesn’t work, and trying it generally triggers trauma.)
Simply noticing what’s going on in the moment, in one part of your body, is really all that’s needed to develop your internal awareness. It’s genuinely not any more complicated than that. It simply takes attention, over time.
You can do this on your own without paying anyone anything, but if a little reminder is helpful, or if getting examples of the kinds of questions to ask is useful, Sensory Moments can help.
So what are Sensory Moments?
You’ll get a short, daily email prompt to tune into your in-the-moment sensory experience.
It’s designed to take seconds, literally.
There’s no exercises. No getting up and doing something. No goals, “shoulds,” or comparisons. Easy to modify to your unique circumstances.
It’s simply about noticing what’s going on in one part of your body, or around you, in this very moment.
Gradually, over time, this noticing can subtly increase your own internal awareness at other times as well.
The whole sequence is an email-a-day for three months (though you can opt-out anytime).
What people who've completed the sequence have to say about it:
What are Sensory Moments good for?
Sensory Quality of Life Improvement
Making the small tweaks and big changes that are needed to improve the quality of your sensory experience is most effective when you have a good sense of what’s going on inside you.
Burnout Recovery
Getting better at not pushing past your limits involves knowing when you’re reaching your limits, which involves growing your internal awareness.
Unmasking
- Knowing what’s you and what’s the mask, and what you want and need, is so much easier when you know how you actually feel.
Being Present
If you’re exploring ways to be present in the moment, this is an easy reminder to notice the now.
How does it work?
As you follow the prompts, or modify them to suit your needs, you’re checking in with a variety of sensory experiences that we tend to ignore on a daily basis. That our culture teaches us to ignore.
Gradually, over time, this noticing can subtly increase your own internal awareness at other times as well.
You might notice that you’re more aware of things like:
- getting hungry, or full,
- when you’re getting irritable, and why,
- when you’re sitting in an uncomfortable position, before it gets painful,
- when you need something, and what
- and because you’re getting words for these experiences from the prompts, you may start describing what’s going on better, both to yourself and to others.
This is a great supplement to go along with other things you’re already doing on your journey of figuring yourself out and improving your life.
Why email?
I could easily compile the list of questions into a PDF or some other format and you could get them all at once.
And yes, email inboxes can get cluttered.
So why email?
Basically, there’s one very important reason.
It’s a slow format delivery. All this internal awareness stuff needs time to repattern neural pathways so it’s not overwhelming and has the positive benefits intended.
If you got the whole set at once, would you really look at only one at a time, once a day? Or would you look through a bunch at first, set it aside, and not come back again?
Yeah, me too. I’d have great intentions, but…executive functioning…so…
The benefit to email is that you get a tiny bit at a time over a longer span of time. And that’s what allows the rest to work and give you the benefit.
(If you know another way to accomplish that, outside of email, I’m open to ideas!) In the meantime…email it is.
This may be a good fit for you:
- If you’re looking for a way to figure out your own sensory needs, beyond earplugs and lights, and aren’t sure what your sensory needs even are.
- If you want to get better at knowing what’s going on inside your own body — maybe you’ve even heard about “interception” — but you’ve got three tips and you’ve done them all.
- If you’re theoretically on board with the idea that emotions are connected to bodily sensations, and want to get better at that, but don’t really want to deal with the whole “emotions” issue.
- If you’ve been exploring your own sensory stuff for a while, and want to go deeper, but don’t have the energy or money for intensive sensory “therapies.”
- If you’re looking for another way to foster present moment being.
This may not be a good fit for you:
- If you want an intensive, fast paced, or instructional course.
- If you’re looking for a complete sensory profile tool. (I’m making one — coming soon — but this isn’t it.)
- If even one more thing is way too much right now.
- If you’re looking for medical advice. This is not going to give you any advice. Of any kind.
- If you’re looking for personalized support. The prompts are designed to be general enough that you can tailor them to your own needs, but it’s not going to do that for you.
If body stuff is trauma-triggering for you. This is designed to be trauma sensitive, but it is directly addressing body stuff and if you’re not in a place where you can process that right now, even in a gentle way, this isn’t the right time.
The prompts are designed to be:
- Trauma sensitive
- Demand avoidance sensitive
- Alexithymia sensitive
Because I deal with all of those myself.
How much is it?
That’s the best part.
You get to choose, from $15+.
For a reference point, if I were to put a firm price-tag on this, I’d ask $30 for the full sequence of three months. But that doesn’t work for everyone. Hence, I’m offering this as Pay What You Can. And if you choose $15, I’m genuinely okay with that.
Sign Up Here
