👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
Info overload vs. intuition 🧠
|
What was the last thing you saw on social media (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)? An ad, a funny post, a talking head, someone’s dreamy beach vacation? How did it make you feel? And just as curious – did you choose to see this content (because you opted to follow a specific page or account), or was it randomly put in front of you, via the algorithm? (Ah, the almighty and mysterious algorithm…) This year, I’ve been noticing how being on social media makes my head spin & my attention scatter. On the one hand, social media is a place to connect, stay updated, and look at cute pet photos. That part is great. 👌 But on the other hand, social media is designed to grab our attention & keep us endlessly scrolling on their apps. That part? Not so great. There’s a lot to say about social media’s effect on, well, everything — from mental health to global politics to why things were super tense at the family Thanksgiving this year. For this email specifically, I want to highlight how overstimulating social media can be, especially for highly sensitive & neurodivergent brains. Every notification, every pixel of content, every meme… takes up space in your brain & requires energy to process. The algorithm is trained to show you content that keeps you on the app longer — not necessarily content that makes you feel resourced in your nervous system, or inspired to engage with nuance & complexity. (To be clear: I don’t want to discount the fact that social media can yield positive outcomes, like community-building, mutual aid, and the sharing of essential resources & truthful information. Many of y’all found me via social media, and I don’t take that connection for granted! But also: Meta isn’t exactly designed with our best interests in mind.) What that point looks like is different for each person. One sign, though, is when you consistently feel more dysregulated & disempowered than before you logged onto the app. We each have our own definition of what a healthy relationship with the Internet looks like, and that relationship is yours to explore & redefine as you please. So, I’ll leave you with this invitation: When the information coming from outside gets too loud (as in, your eyes have glazed over from all the mindless scrolling), consider “switching radio stations.” Start listening to the information coming from inside. 🧠 Inside your brain, body, and nervous system — there is so much information. In fact, you hold a universe-full of data, wisdom, and memory, conscious & subconscious. You might experience this information as sensation, emotion, image, or an inner voice. Maybe it feels like a door opening, or a gut instinct that pulls you in like a gravitational force. Sometimes, we call it intuition. Either way, I hope you’ll listen to it, with curiosity & non-judgment. Because the information coming from inside you is just as important as the information that comes from outside. 🌲 If this letter resonates with you & you’d like some space to connect with yourself & tend to your nervous system, you might enjoy this 6-min practice: Guided Meditation for Grounding: Tree Talk soon, P.S. If you're overwhelmed & burnt out, but too busy for weekly therapy, I'd love to support you. I offer Nervous System Healing Intensives — three 90-minute sessions, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, IFS, EMDR) that go deeper than talk therapy & help you feel better, sooner.
Intensives are a type of short-term, accelerated therapy — for folks who prefer a hyper-focused approach to healing; who need longer than 50-min sessions to warm up & process deeply. Our three 90-minute sessions are scheduled across 1-2 weeks. 👉🏽 If you want to get an Intensive on the books, click here to book an intro call. P.P.S. Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward it along. New readers can subscribe HERE. I help highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves. 💗 Need a nervous system reset? —> Join me for a Calm Place meditation.
|
Liz's Neurodivergent Letters
👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
This time of year feels like the turning of a page. Things seem to slow down (as people take time off to be with loved ones) and simultaneously speed up (the mad dash to get everything done before the holidays, the high-pressure “new year, new me” energy). Like many, I grew up setting New Year’s resolutions — like eat healthier, exercise more, improve my sleep. While there’s nothing wrong with setting these goals, this year I want to try something different (& I welcome you to join me)....
While pondering a big decision recently, this question floated through my mind. What would my ancestors do? This question added a totally new dimension & depth to my pondering. I began to see the situation differently, in a bigger context. So I want to share this question with you, too, and let you curiously notice whatever comes up. Pick 1 decision that you’re mulling over. It can be big or small — whether to stay where you are or go somewhere else; whether to commit to project A or B;...
If I could give my 5-year-old cat, Tiger, one of those yearbook superlatives (like, Most Likely to… Be Famous, Cure a Disease, Set a World Record), hers would be... 🙌🏽 Most Likely to Not Care What Anyone Thinks 🏆 Granted, most cats don’t really care what others think. They don’t get self-conscious, the way we humans do. Somewhere in there is a lesson about how to unmask & be authentically yourself. First, let me tell you about my orange cat. When Tiger is uncomfortable, she does whatever it...