I was keeping my youngest son company while he did his World Religions assignment today and after he finished writing his personal 10 commandments, I was inspired to write my own.

Just like him, I am more into the shalls than the shall nots and my list is not so much about morals as about helping myself to be at ease in my own life.

In no particular order, here are the first five commandments that I came up with today.

1) Respect how your brain works

My brain doesn’t work the same way as neurotypical people’s but it only causes me trouble when I try to make it work like everyone else’s. When I respect how my brain works, life is much smoother.

2) Choose how to spend your time

If I am not careful, my time gets eaten up in small tasks (and their resulting rabbit-holes of related tasks.) If I consciously choose my time, I spend it in ways that are much more satisfying.

3) Dance whenever possible

Yes, I am one of those people dancing in the car at stop lights and bopping around the kitchen while I cook. I might be awful at it, I don’t know, but I sure as hell like it.

4) Be kind to yourself (past, present and future)

This is not the same as being ‘nice’ to myself. ‘Nice’ might mean avoiding tasks or practices to avoid temporary annoyance. Being kind means taking good care of myself right now, getting the me of right now to do things that will make life easier for future-me, and it means forgiving past-me for the things I did poorly.

5) Whenever possible, turn your face toward the sun

I am relentlessly hopeful. That doesn’t meant that I pretend that everything is perfect all the time. It means that I acknowledge what’s difficult (or even awful) and then I take action to find hopeful steps forward.

(continued tomorrow)