← The Neurodivergent Experience
The Neurodivergent Experience
Mindful Mondays With Ashley Bentley: Routines, Rhythms & Play — Building Gentle Architecture for Life
00:31:29
Start Your Week With Presence & Purpose
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The Neurodivergent Experience Podcast presents Mindful Mondays. I'm your host Ashley Bentley, and this is your invitation to pause, breathe and begin your week with presence and purpose. Last week in episode three, we explored the weight of the shoulds and have to's that often shape our lives. We learned how those words can keep us stuck in judgment and pressure and how subtle shifts in language can return us to choice, agency and meaning. This week we turn our attention to routines and rhythms. Structure is a beautiful thing and can be a real lifeline to the neurodivergent brain. It can help with decision, fatigue and even demand avoidance. It supports our nervous systems, provides safety for the brain and body, and creates scaffolding that helps us function. But structure can also become rigid and obsessive and a little bit imprisoning if we're not careful. So today we'll explore the beauty of routine, how to build a gentle architecture for our life balanced with rhythm, presence and play. So your brain and body love routine. From a neuroscience perspective, routines provide predictability which reduces stress and frees up mental energy. When the brain and body know what to expect, they don't have to spend as much time and energy scanning for danger or making constant micro decisions. This is especially Important for the neurodivergent brain and body, which can burn through energy very quickly from continually managing uncertainty. So there are three main areas of life where routines are particularly movement, sleep, and eating. So with movement, the body loves routine. Regular exercise, or even gentle, consistent walking tells the nervous system, I am safe. I know what to expect. Sleep, going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time regulates your circadian rhythm. It supports hormone balance, and it makes rest more restorative. And finally, eating meals at regular times with consistent portion sizes and a consistent balance of food groups help regulate metabolism and blood sugar, which in turn stabilizes mood, focus and energy levels. So when we keep these three areas, movement, sleep, and eating, within a gentle structure, the brain feels calmer and the body feels steadier. It's like giving the nervous system a rhythm it can dance to instead of leaving it in chaos. So let's look at the neuroscience of decision fatigue. Routines are wonderful at protecting us from decision fatigue. Research shows that we make about a thousand decisions every day. What to wear, what to eat, how to respond to a message, when to start or stop a task. Each decision draws from the brain's limited pool of cognitive energy. And over time, this leads to overwhelm, Especially for neurodivergent folks whose brains are processing more sensory and emotional information already. By creating routines, we eliminate unnecessary choices. When breakfast is the same time every morning, or when there's a consistent bedtime ritual, the brain relaxes. It doesn't need to negotiate or analyze. And that saved energy can be redirected into creativity, connection, or play. But, and here's the important part, too much structure can backfire. What starts as supportive scaffolding can harden into rigid walls. What once freed us can begin to confine us. Now I want to pause here and share something very personal about my own journey with structure. Routines quite literally saved my health. After I went through a full shutdown, I created anchors that gave me stability. Some of these were making huge batches of soup and freezing them so that I always had nourishing home cooked food without needing to cook every day. Taking a relaxing bath every night to relax and switch off and practice self hypnosis. And once my body began to heal, I started walking every day. And I used those walks to practice mantras and affirmations, reprogramming my mind into a growth mindset. These routines were transformative. They brought me back to life when I needed stability the most. But here's the thing, I overdid them. What started as helpful habits slowly became rigid structures. My mantras and affirmations turned into have to's that I imposed on myself. Nobody else was making me do them, but my OCD tendencies latched on, and suddenly they were more about compulsion than connection. I found myself walking outside, but not actually connecting with nature because I was too caught up in saying all of my mantras and in the right order. And bath time became less about relaxation and more about making sure I completed my hypnosis practice. And if my schedule didn't allow time for a bath or a walk, I felt fear that my health would suffer. Even my soup system became a prison. If I ate out or I didn't have my soup. It felt like I was failing the structure I had built to protect myself. So here's what I realized. I had designed a wonderful structure that worked beautifully, but only when life conditions were perfect. And this rigidity was in turn creating a lot of have to's in my life. The subject of last week's episode. And life, as we all know, is unpredictable. And it reminds me a little bit about how skyscrapers are built. You might think that something so tall must be rigid and locked in place. But engineers design skyscrapers to sway. They shift with the wind, with the weather, with the movement around them. That gentle yielding is actually what keeps them standing tall for decades. And I think our routines are the same. If they're too rigid, they crack. But if they have the flexibility to sway, to bend and adjust when life shifts, then they can support us for the long haul. Strength isn't in rigidity. It's in the balance between structure and flexibility. So what was missing in this wonderful structure I had built? Play. I still believe in structure, and I still use routines. They hold me steady, but they are not meant to hold me captive. Presence has become a partner, the part of me that helps decide the next move if my routine isn't available. And play has become the medicine that softens rigidity. Without play, structure can turn into stone. And with play, it breathes. So routines create the container and rhythm and play bring it alive. Think of it like music. The beat provides the structure, but it's the melody and improvisation that makes it beautiful. Without rhythm, music is chaos. But without play, music is lifeless. Balancing routine with rhythm and play can feel a little bit abstract, but in practice, it's often very simple. Routine is about setting a container, a shape for your day. And rhythm is about allowing that container to flow with energy and presence. And play is what keeps it alive. Think about your morning. Maybe your routine is waking at the same time and making coffee or tea. And journaling and rhythm comes when you notice how your body feels that morning. Perhaps your journaling turns into doodling. Or maybe you add a walk if the sun is shining and the play is letting yourself dance while the kettle boils, or lighting a candle because it feels good, not because it's on the checklist. Another example. Let's look at movement. Your routine might be a daily walk. The rhythm is letting the pace shift with your energy, some days brisk, other days slow and contemplative. And the play might be taking a different route, or pausing to notice a bird, or skipping the mantra recitation so you can simply hear the crunch of your feet on the path. The balance is this routine provides the anchor. Rhythm helps you adapt in real time, and play keeps you connected to joy. Without play, routines calcify, and without rhythm, they feel brittle. Together they give us a life that is both steady and supple, reliable, but never lifeless. And for the neurodivergent brain and body, the combination of routine plus rhythm plus play is especially powerful. Routine creates predictability, rhythm creates flow, and play creates presence. Together they create a life that is steady but not stuck, creating flexible architecture that gives us freedom, not restriction. So how about a little chunk of bite sized Buddhism? This week's teaching comes from the Buddha's concept of the Middle Way. The Middle Way arose from the Buddha's own experience, first indulging in excess as a prince, then swinging to the other extreme of extreme self denial. Neither extreme brought freedom. What he discovered was balance. Not too tight, not too loose. Structure without obsession, freedom without chaos. When it comes to routines, the Middle Way can remind us that routines are helpful, but not when they become restrictive. Discipline is healthy, but not when it becomes self punishment. And freedom is essential, but not when it collapses into disorder. So the invitation is to walk the Middle Way with your routines strong enough to support you and soft enough to bend. And how about a meaningful real world metaphor for looking at how some of our structures are built? There's a Japanese wood preservation method called Sho Sugi Ben, where the timber that is used to build the exteriors of houses is intentionally touched by fire. And it sounds counterintuitive at first because the way it works is that the wood is burned, charred on purpose, and yet that burn forms a protective carbon layer. It shields the wood from rot, from insects, and even from fire itself. The wood doesn't weaken. It becomes stronger, more durable and more beautiful. Its surface takes on a unique texture, a depth of character tied to the Japanese philosophy of Wabi sabi the beauty of imperfection. And I can't help but feel how perfectly this mirrors the neurodivergent journey, especially in the context of structure, rhythm and routine. So many of us have been through burnout, through years of overwork, through the pain of trying to force ourselves into routines that weren't designed for our brains or our bodies. We carry sensory overwhelm, masking trauma, grief, meltdowns. And yes, we carry the scars from these. But just like Sho Sugi Ban, those scars can become the very texture that protects us, that lived experience becomes our carbon layer. It doesn't mean we're less sensitive. It means we're more resilient. Because we now know what doesn't work. We've learned how to preserve ourselves. And this is where meaning lives in. Realizing that our struggles are not just evidence of pain, but evidence of wisdom earned. Every burnout, every overwhelm, every time we broke down, that was information. Information about what kind of structure we needed. Information about how best to look after ourselves and build our own unique architecture. So instead of fighting your scars, what if you built your routines around them? Not in spite of them, but because of them. What if the very moments that threatened to break you became the blueprint for how you design your gentle architecture today? That is microdosing, meaning. Finding the profound and what you've survived. Recognizing that your routines and rhythms don't need to be perfect. They simply need to be real, built from your truth. As we move into today's guided meditation. If you are currently driving or operating heavy machinery, please make sure to pause the recording and come back to it when you can safely come back into stillness. And if everybody can just find a comfortable position, allowing your body to find rest and feel the weight of yourself being held by the ground, the chair or the bed beneath you. Nothing to hold up, nothing to push through. And whenever you're ready, feel free to gently close your eyes and take a deep breath in. And release it slowly. And another breath in. And this time on the exhale, with a soft sigh out. And with each breath, you are stepping through a threshold, leaving behind the noise of the day and entering an inner landscape of quiet imagination. And in your mind's eye, begin to picture a house appearing before you. It's not an ordinary house. It's alive. The walls shimmer as if they remember every story you've ever lived. And the roof stretches high as though reaching for the sky. And the foundation is deep, rooted into the earth like the trunk of an ancient tree. This house is you. It is the architecture of your life. Your routines, your rhythms, your ways of being. Step closer and run your hand along the walls. Some feel smooth and strong, the habits that support you, nourish you and keep you safe. And others may feel too rigid, like stone that has grown cold. Routines that once helped you but have since become heavy and demanding. Just notice them all without judgment. This house isn't perfect, and it doesn't need to be. It is a reflection of your humanity, textured, uneven, and beautiful in all its imperfections. And now step inside. The rooms are filled with light and shadow, and you notice windows all around you, tall and just waiting to be opened. Go to the nearest window and place your hand on the frame. And as you push it open, a breeze rushes in. Fresh, cool, alive. This is rhythm. The air swirls through the house, and curtains billow like sails on a ship. And dust lifts and dances and shafts of sunlight. And walk now to another window and open it wide. And the breeze grows stronger. You can hear the sound of leaves rustling, birds calling, the faint pulse of life beyond the walls. With each window, the house grows lighter. It breathes again. Just pause here and feel the air moving through you as well as around you. You, too, are a house with windows, and your rhythms are the breeze that keeps you alive. And now notice the doors of the house. Some may have been closed for a long time. As you approach one, gently turn the handle. And as the door swings open, warm sunlight pours in and the threshold glows like gold. Beyond it, there isn't obligation or duty, but freedom, Space to move without rules. Step out just for a moment, and feel the ground beneath your feet and the sky arching wide above you. This is play, the unstructured, the spontaneous, the sacred silliness that makes life more than a checklist. And just stand here in both worlds. The house that steadies you and the open air that frees you. Good. That's right. Breathe in this truth. The walls are steady, the windows are wide open, and the doors are ajar, letting in sunlight. It feels alive, breathing, balanced and safe. And walk slowly now through each room. Notice the routines that support you, that feel, kind of keep them, strengthen them. And notice now the routines that have grown too rigid. Imagine reshaping them, softening them back into clay, making them flexible again. And just pause. Now, in the center of the house, you are not a prisoner here. You are the architect. You are the one who opens the windows and the one who chooses when to step through the doors. And take a deep breath in. And on your exhale, can you whisper silently inside? My routines are scaffolding. My rhythms keep me steady and play keeps me free. Just let those words ripple through you like sunlight warming the very foundation of your being. And now let the scene shift. The house begins to grow taller and taller, stretching upward floor by floor, until it becomes a skyscraper, reaching into the clouds. And you may think something so tall must be rigid, unyielding. But no. The genius of its design is that it sways with wind, with weather, with whatever life throws its way. The skyscraper moves. And because it yields, it does not break. You, too are built this way. Your routines are not meant to lock you in place. They are meant to give you strength. And within that strength, the freedom to bend, to sway, to yield when life demands it. Really feel yourself as that skyscraper now. Tall, rooted, resilient. The winds of change move around you, but you remain. Not stiff, not fragile, alive, flexible, strong because you yield, whispering silently inside. My strength is not in rigidity, but in my ability to bend. I can sway and I still stand. And slowly let the house begin to fade from your mind's eye. But know that it remains within you, a living metaphor, an inner architecture that you can return to anytime. Just bring your awareness back to the body resting here and now. Feel the surface supporting you and the breath moving in and out and the gentle rhythm of your heart and wiggle your fingers and toes and move your head from side to side. And whenever you're ready and not a moment before, you can feel free to gently open your eyes and carry this image with you into your week. A house that breathes, a skyscraper that sways, and a life that balances routine with rhythm and play. Thank you so much for spending your mindful Monday with me. Today we explore the beauty of routines, how they support our beautiful, neurodivergent brains and bodies, and how they can save us in times of need. But we also noticed the shadow side, how routines can become rigid. And the key is balance. Structure softened by rhythm and enlivened by play. And if you'd like more guided practices like the one we did today, you can find me on Insight Timer, where I share meditations and yoga nidras and bedtime stories. Next week, we'll continue building on this theme by exploring what happens when the system gets too loud, how to navigate sensory overwhelm and find your way back to calm. Until then, start soft and stay steady. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts.
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