Just one, two, there you go. It’s me, J.D.B. Tuesday, January 6th. This is my Monday check-in. It’s actually really late by my standards. It’s 9:39 p.m. Part of me is like, fuck it, it’s too late to record. The other part of me is like, no, I made a commitment. I want to do it. That’s something I want to unpack because it’s one of the themes today.
This idea of commitment, discipline, and structure came up. It’s really important to me that this process serves me and isn’t something I’m forcing myself to do. When I force things, I lose the joy and it becomes work, stress, and unhealthy. When I say I’m documenting the year of my life, I don’t mean every single day has to be documented. If it’s aligned, great. If it’s not, that’s fine too. I can still check in regularly and tell the story without it becoming an insane regimen.
I have to be careful because the more I learn about my neurodivergent self, the more I see my OCD tendencies. I can get carried away with rules and how things have to look. Even telling myself to relax doesn’t work. It doesn’t feel good.
One of the big things today was working on morning pages. I love Julia Cameron’s work. I’ve read parts of The Artist’s Way before but never committed to it fully. On my New Year’s trip, driving around Bali and listening to audiobooks, I listened to the whole audiobook and decided to commit to the twelve weeks. It feels aligned, spiritual, creative, and right for me.
What I noticed is that morning pages are meant to declutter the mind. But for my neurodivergent brain, naming thoughts doesn’t clear them. It opens tabs. I name one thing, then another, then another, and all the tabs stay open because they’re unresolved. I’m a meaning-making machine. If something is opened and not resolved, my brain loops on it. Loop thinking drives me mad.
A lot of these loops are rejection-sensitive thoughts, people being mad at me, old rejections. Logically, I know it doesn’t matter, and I don’t even care about these people, but they still take up space in my head. Morning pages were making this worse for me, not better.
I talked this through with Atlas and realized why Byron Katie’s The Work has helped me so much. It’s a way to unpack unresolved thoughts, to question them and look at them from multiple perspectives. It’s one of the few tools that has actually helped me resolve obsessive loop thinking. Once I’ve really looked at something from every angle, it’s gone.
This made me realize we need an Artist’s Way for neurodivergent people. Morning pages can open the tabs, but we need another tool to actually close them. We’re wired differently. We don’t just walk away with a decluttered mind.
The other thing I want to name is that I had an amazing day mood-wise. I got caught in the rain in a rural village, couldn’t get a ride, and normally that would dysregulate me. Today it didn’t. I was singing, playful, in flow. Even asking my Airbnb host for help and waiting didn’t bother me.
I was sitting in the rain at a convenience store with people staring at me. In small villages, people aren’t used to seeing someone like me. Normally being perceived is hard for me. Today, it wasn’t. I had this really sweet moment with a little kid, laughing and connecting, and it marked me. In the past, I was too dysregulated to enjoy moments like that.
When I got home, I blasted “Everlong” and air-drummed and danced like a maniac. I felt playful and expressive. This kind of expression is a huge part of my healing. I was never allowed to be expressive as a kid. My natural level is a ten or fifteen, and I was conditioned to turn that off.
Ecstatic dance cracked me open. When I express myself fully, it brings other people joy and gives them permission to do the same. I love that. I recorded a silly video just for the joy of it. Not for attention, but because it makes me happy, and it spreads joy.
There’s one more important piece. Part of my leap of faith was coming off ADHD medication. I was taking Concerta to survive a job I hated. It helped me hyperfocus but destroyed my sleep and gave me migraines. With ADHD and autism, it amplified imbalance. I got stuck force-feeding myself medication to do work that wasn’t aligned.
I was also using marijuana heavily just to come down from extreme overstimulation. I’d hyperfocus from nine to six without eating or drinking, then smoke just to be able to relax and eat. It was an unhealthy loop: work addiction, medication, marijuana, isolation.
Coming to Bali was about breaking that pattern. I’ve tapered off the meds. I haven’t smoked since December 23rd. I’m eating well. I feel so much better. I’m proud of myself. That feels like a good place to end.
Threads
Discipline Without Force
Summary: I explored the difference between commitment and self-forcing. I realized that rigid discipline drains joy and becomes unhealthy for me. I’m learning to let structure serve me instead of controlling me.
Lesson / Teaching: Sustainable discipline for neurodivergent people must be flexible and aligned. Commitment works best when it supports regulation rather than perfectionism.
Tags: discipline, self-trust, autonomy, neurodivergence
Morning Pages and Open Tabs
Summary: Morning pages helped me see how my mind works, but they opened loops instead of clearing them. Naming thoughts without resolving them increases mental load for me. This insight helped me understand why I need meaning-making to close loops.
Lesson / Teaching: Neurodivergent minds may need resolution tools alongside free writing. Awareness without integration can increase overwhelm rather than reduce it.
Tags: morning-pages, loop-thinking, meaning-making, cognitive-load
Resolving Thought Loops
Summary: I reflected on how unresolved thoughts create obsessive loops. Tools like Byron Katie’s process have helped me actually close mental tabs. Resolution, not expression alone, brings relief.
Lesson / Teaching: Loop thinking eases when thoughts are questioned and fully examined. Closure comes from perspective, not suppression.
Tags: thought-loops, cognitive-processing, emotional-regulation
Regulation in the Wild
Summary: I noticed how regulated I felt despite rain, uncertainty, and being stared at. Situations that once overwhelmed me felt playful and manageable. This marked real nervous system change.
Lesson / Teaching: Regulation expands capacity. When the nervous system feels safe, perception and experience shift dramatically.
Tags: nervous-system, regulation, sensory-processing
Expressive Joy as Healing
Summary: Dancing, performing, and being fully expressive brought me deep joy. I connected this to ecstatic dance and reclaiming a part of myself that was shut down early. Expression feels like channeling life force.
Lesson / Teaching: Expressive freedom is not indulgent, it is reparative. Authentic expression can heal and invite others into joy.
Tags: expressive-healing, embodiment, playfulness
Breaking the Burnout Loop
Summary: I named how medication, overwork, and marijuana formed an unhealthy cycle. Leaving my job and coming to Bali was a conscious interruption of that loop. I’m proud of reclaiming healthier patterns.
Lesson / Teaching: Escaping burnout often requires environmental and behavioral rupture. Healing includes removing what keeps us dysregulated, not just adding tools.
Tags: burnout-recovery, habit-change, self-care
Selected Quotes
“I want discipline to serve me, not control me.”
“Naming thoughts without resolving them just opens more tabs for me.”
“I’m a meaning-making machine, unresolved things don’t go away.”
“Today, I could enjoy being seen without feeling unsafe.”
“Expressing myself fully brings me joy and gives others permission.”