Creating Inclusive Communities (Pride Episode)

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Last week's episode I talked about the pain

of not feeling like you belong in community

and I wanted to expand about that and

so this week I'm going to be speaking

about how to make individuals, especially neurodivergent individuals,

disabled individuals, people who are often left out

of community, how to make them feel like

a part of your community and welcoming and

it goes far beyond saying hey we're an

inclusive group or hey we're an inclusive community

or our goal is to make everybody you

know feel nice and comfortable because saying those

words are is one thing doing the actions

taking the steps necessary to actually put them

into place is something that let's be honest

a lot of groups and a lot of

individuals just aren't willing to do.

So let's dive deeply into this pride episode

and talk about how to make our spaces

much more welcoming for neurodivergent and disabled individuals.

You're listening to Feathermane Soul Wisdom, a podcast

for those looking to rediscover their wild spirit

in spite of life's challenges.

If you're living with a chronic illness or

neurodivergent or consider yourself disabled and you're looking

to connect with your own inner untamed essence,

then this show is for you.

Your host is Kit Kaelstow, Wild Spirit Storyteller.

Thanks for listening and now on to the

episode.

Hi I'm Kit Kaelstow, your host for the

Feathermane Soul Wisdom show and you know what

I'm just going to be really honest and

really transparent up front.

I have reached a stage in my life

that well whatever whatever shreds or faint hints

of a filter I had as an undiagnosed

and then diagnosed autistic individual those little wisps

of a filter that I held on to

for most of my life they're gone I'm

sorry they I I have reached the stage

of life where the field in which my

f's are grown is barren it it doesn't

grow them anymore and I have to admit

it could be the past 18 months or

so well you know possibly the past 10

years or so but especially the past couple

of years I guess I used to be

a really happy bubbly optimistic you know we're

all in this together type person and I

would like to still be that type of

person but I also have had some stark

awareness about humanity and community and people in

it and honestly I blame my undergrad in

psychology because sitting through two years of classes

that basically tell me that I'm the one

with deficits that I'm the one that isn't

you know I'm the square peg that's not

fitting into their round neurotypical hole you know

that that was a weird analogy I'm sorry

but you know basically being told for two

years that I was the problem when it

was very clearly I don't know the professor

that allowed really rampant transphobia in their capstone

class that was supposed to be all about

cultural sensitivity yeah so I'm I want this

episode to be constructive I want this episode

to be something that people can take away

you know tidbits of information from or maybe

that they can look more deeply into their

hearts look more deeply into their groups their

organizations but I'll be honest my autistic pattern

recognition tells me that we're on our own

my friends it you know we we cannot

rely on other people to create space for

us and maybe that's the whole message of

pride you know pride is when as a

queer individual you step forward and you say

I am proud I am who I am

and I am proud of that and I

am I mean there I really I really

don't want to diminish that in any way

and so when the world doesn't make space

for you you have to make space for

yourself and so while yes I'm going to

spend this episode talking about the different ways

that organizations can work to be more inclusive

can help make sure there is space for

everybody and everybody feels like a part of

the community I also think we have to

be aware that we have to make space

for ourselves maybe I'll do you know fine

maybe I'll do another pride episode next week

and talk about that we'll see but let's

just recap a little bit the reasons why

individuals may not feel comfortable in groups or

feel like they're a part of the community

if you are neurodivergent and that is a

broad broad umbrella I'm not just talking about

autism ADHD and AUDHD there is a vast

list of diagnoses that people could have that

would be indicating how their brain works that

you know could be a traumatic brain injury

complex PTSD is considered a divergent neurotype Tourette's

depression anxiety all of that you know there's

a huge list of conditions there's no way

I could list them all and if your

brain does not work the way that culture

or society expects then you're going to feel

left out and if you're not aware that

that's why you're feeling left out as many

undiagnosed neurodivergent individuals do then you know that's

going to compound that because you're going to

feel left out of community and you're not

going to know why so organizations what can

you do to help individuals who are neurodivergent

feel welcome and wanted and that wanted is

the most important part here I think of

this discussion because it's hell to feel like

you're not wanted in a group trust me

you're not alone in that what can an

organization do to make somebody feel wanted well

first of all is respect everybody's lived experience

if somebody tells you something isn't working don't

dismiss it as just them if something if

somebody actually has the strength the executive function

the strong feeling to speak up about something

that should be listened to and if it

is an accessibility thing such as a sensory

issue if it's a way somebody's acting it

should always be examined and is this a

valid concern is this something we can take

action on and not just dismiss it because

of who it's coming from likewise if you

have somebody come into your organization that has

experience that differs from a large group of

people in the organization so since this is

a pride month it would be if your

if your pride group is primarily local individuals

who are gay who are lesbian who are

transgender if an asexual or an agender person

comes into your group don't dismiss their concerns

when they bring them up just because they're

not the same as everybody in the group

and we see this sometimes in the queer

community with agender people with bisexual people with

people who whose gender and sexual orientation do

not align with kind of you know what

the media tells us that pride should be

our group should be the other thing should

be if you do group activities together make

sure expectations are clear a great example is

the meme i've seen going around where you

know a bunch of people are invited to

a picnic and the person running the picnic

says no i don't need to bring anything

it's all good and the person who took

that literally shows up without anything because they

were told it's good it's okay you don't

have to bring anything when everybody else does

and then that makes them feel left out

then they're like hey why didn't you bring

anything and the person says well you told

me not to i didn't mean that don't

do that mean what you say say what

you mean make clear expectations clear directions and

with those clear directions if you're making a

group decision make sure that every voice is

heard and if you have somebody in the

group that is going what you know whatever

the group wants whatever you say make sure

they get a say in things too because

quite often the person that defaults to you

know whatever you want you know best it's

okay i'll do what you want usually they're

defaulting if that becomes a default for somebody

that's usually a fawning behavior and that's an

indication that there is trauma that that person

either has trauma in their past and that's

that's how their neurotype or their brain works

or that they are not feeling comfortable and

safe in the group to speak up with

their needs i want to shift gears a

little bit to disability disabilities aren't just needing

a mobility aid such as a cane or

a wheelchair disabilities aren't just visible there are

a host a large number of invisible disabilities

and regardless of whether a disability is visible

or invisible just you know your abilities vary

on any given day and i think that's

something we can all agree on regardless as

of whether society considers us disabled or not

that one day you wake up you have

a lot of energy you can do things

the next day you wake up and well

to use the southern term you feel like

a can of busted biscuits the other thing

about disabilities is that you've got to keep

in mind the models of disabilities some people

are disabled because there is a medical condition

causing the disability some people are disabled because

society has disabled them society has blocked them

access society has blocked them the ability to

go about their life and so to tie

that back into like the neurodivergent individuals a

you know as somebody with a neurodivergent brain

my brain is operating the way that my

brain operates there's nothing wrong with how your

brain operates however society is disabling because society

has created rules and structures and expectations that

do not match well with my brain and

society with and culture is all built around

the neurotypical brain and so society that's the

societal disabling societal disabling would be a church

for example without a wheelchair ramp or a

church without the ability for an individual using

a wheelchair to receive communion at the altar

to use a couple of examples from my

education society can disable in that way and

so when you have disabled individuals in your

group and i want to be clear disabled

is not a bad word there are language

preferences among different groups but personally i don't

consider disabled a bad word because as i

just got done explaining sometimes it's not me

that's disabled it's society and so with that

it includes it includes or involves a little

more conscientiousness and a little more care on

your organization if you're a small group maybe

even as much as a dozen people you

probably know most of the people in the

group so it's no big deal to say

to know okay i know this member of

my group i know that they sometimes have

days where they're not able to walk very

far let's make sure we can accommodate this

person in our gathering or in our event

no problem at all so a good example

would be a pride parade and you know

making sure that this person can participate on

a float for example or in the back

of a truck sitting down however however that

works um for for your particular parade but

making sure the person can be comfortable can

be safe while participating and still feeling like

a part of the event in other words

like the other part of that would be

don't have everybody walking and then have just

this one person sitting in a chair you

know have a small group of people on

the float sitting down have some on the

float standing up if there's room if it's

safe have some people you know walking around

passing out candy whatever you wish to do

for your event make sure that that person

is not singled out in any way the

other thing i would say is if it's

a larger group simply be aware that you

may have people attending that are not able

to participate in a certain manner again no

judgment calls there's no no right or wrong

but if you're if you're a larger group

or not everybody knows everybody or you're you're

not on such close terms with everybody somebody

may not disclose hey i have an invisible

disability not me i'll disclose but not everybody

does and that's their choice and so you

want to make sure that you are creating

an event creating a space where people with

energy limitations with sensory issues with mobility issues

can actually participate in the event and yet

feel safe and so when you put those

two pieces together the bottom line the best

way to have people to include people and

bring people into your community is to simply

be considerate of other people to honor other

people's lived experiences and to really just put

yourselves in the shoes of other people in

other situations that you may not have experienced

and this to me goes hand in hand

with leadership and so if you have the

leader of a group that's basically saying one

thing and yet members of the group are

feeling like the that you know what that

person's saying is not being followed then that

really does not um you know then that

does not indicate good leadership a good leader

needs to be able to look at things

from multiple points of view and needs to

be able to accept different lived experiences and

different people's experiences even if everybody is doing

the same thing at that same moment because

you we don't know sensory issues sensory differences

nobody knows what another person can experience you

know there are no lights that flash on

your forehead when like the lights are too

bright or the background noise is too loud

and maybe somebody with an auditory processing issue

is having difficulty with that conversation because the

band is you know the band music is

too loud you don't know what other people

are going through unless they tell you and

if they don't tell you then you need

you know a good part of good community

is making sure everybody feels included and everybody

feels involved and so the the last thing

I want to leave people with today is

that even if somebody doesn't speak up not

speaking up doesn't mean that things aren't happening

what that tells you is that you've created

an environment where somebody doesn't feel safe speaking

up and usually these people will just go

away they'll just drift out of your group

and the group will go on being inaccessible

or the person will still stay a part

of your group and just fade to the

background and no longer do anything with the

group or try to do very little as

possible and that's going to be a clue

that the group is not accessible now I

want to spend just a little bit of

time here at the end of my podcast

why am I having this conversation because this

ties into grief coaching this ties into yoga

philosophy the you know ahisma non-violence do

no harm this ties into the natural world

this ties into everything and so just because

this is maybe a it does not apply

to the work that I do what it

means is that this conversation I think needs

to be had at this moment in time

because there's an awful lot of people feeling

left out of an awful lot of spaces

and there's things happening again I'm in the

U.S. there's things happening on the federal

level that are drastically impacting certain marginalized communities

that people not in those communities have no

clue that this is going on and is

eugenics is genocide is not good and so

the one thing I would say is that

if we start thinking about our community and

thinking about reaching out to others in our

in our small community whatever your group is

you know a book club a pride organization

a you know after school gathering you know

whatever that community is a fan club of

some sort a group of people that meet

at a coffee house on Saturday mornings or

Sunday mornings you know your church or religion

whatever you whatever organizations whatever communities you're involved

in even beyond pride if you start to

think about how can I make this better

for neurodivergent people for disabled people for queer

people for people from the global south when

you start thinking about that then when when

you start thinking about that you make that

space a little bit better and that eases

the pressure on those communities and helps them

feel a little more wanted so I guess

this falls under you know my my thoughts

of just be kind it costs you nothing

to be kind it costs you nothing to

say hey we have created this event does

anybody see any problems with it as far

as including other you know groups of individuals

as far as including some of our our

people who may have you know mobility or

disability issues it costs you nothing to be

kind and so I think that is a

good place to leave this pride episode and

we'll see about next week's show if maybe

I can talk a little bit more on

the subject as I mentioned at the first

of this episode thank you so much for

listening please don't forget to like or follow

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there thank you.

You've been listening to the Feathermane Soul Wisdom

podcast hosted by Kit Kaelstow.

Learn more about Feathermane Soul at feathermanesoul.com.

As a wild spirit storyteller, Kit is passionate

about helping those who are neurodivergent, disabled, or

living with chronic illness rediscover their own inner

wild spirit.

Visit feathermanesoul.com to receive free gifts or

book a free call with Kit to discuss

how Wild Spirit Storytelling can help you.

Music is Running with the Horses by Purple

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This podcast is hosted on the Muse Charmer

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Please don't forget to like, subscribe, or follow

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