Beyond Heartbreak: Building Hope In Relationships with Neurodivergent Adults
This is the follow up post to Beyond Heartbreak: Parenting Adult Children with Mental Illness. It is an extended guide designed for parents, caregivers, lovers and friends who are seeking radical change and growth in their relationships with neurodivergent and mentally ill adults. (Note that I’ve expanded the language from “mental illness” to “neurodivergence” in this post to be more inclusive.) I recommend reading the first post for context but this post is not dependent on it. If you are curious but cautious about change and growth, don’t worry. The journey contains a guide. I also recommend reading this post on a computer or lap top. A phone will not capture the depth and breadth your journey deserves.
When you love someone navigating neurodivergence and mental illness, you learn to hold contradictions. Frustration sits on your shoulders while wonder lights up your eyes. Disappointment weighs on your mind as possibility whispers in your ear. Anger tightens your jaw until tenderness softens your voice. And grief lives in your tears even as joy warms your smile. These contradictions can make building and maintaining hope seem impossible, especially when medical interventions fail and conventional wisdom about relationship building fall short.
I write as someone whose life has been touched by mental health issues from all sides—as the child of a father who struggled with anxiety, and whose grandfather lived with manic depression; as someone who has weathered my own seasons of depression and anxiety; and as a parent walking alongside an adult child with mental health challenges. I also write as a hope-centered Blooming Sage with wisdom and insight to share on this poignant topic. What I offer you today is a wonderful opportunity to love differently. To love the neurodivergent person in your life in a radical way - that is, to love beyond labels.
A Note About Language
You may notice I use the terms "neurodivergence,” "mental illness,” and “mental challenges” interchangeably. This is because our society does not yet have language sophisticated enough to carry the weight of complex human experiences. Additionally, I’ve found that language shapes not just how we see ourselves, but what we believe is possible. For example, while "mental illness" places the focus on something broken or diseased that needs fixing or correction, "neurodivergence" acknowledges different ways of experiencing and processing the world. These subtle shifts make the difference in whether we stay trapped in problem-centered thinking or advance to imagining new possibilities. One solution I’ve found, which I call “loving beyond labels,” invites us to see our adult child, sibling, friend, or lover, as a unique and special human being with gifts that transcend any clinical category.
I recognize that shifting perspective, after years of thinking about your loved one’s challenges through a medical lens, can feel overwhelming. When you've built an entire approach to a relationship around fixing problems, the invitation to see differently might trigger resistance. If you are already feeling resistance, in the form of anger, regret, shame, or cynicism, rather than fight your feelings, I recommend (1) reading the Guide then (2) skimming the contents for the text in bold. This will give you an overview of the journey without the intensity.
Guide To This Journey
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This isn't just another article about "coping" with a loved one's challenges. It's an invitation to a profound shift in how we understand minds that work differently from what our culture considers "normal." This is a long journey, and one that deserves whole-hearted attention. I encourage you to take breaks for reflection. This guide is best consumed in more than one sitting. Here's where our journey will take us:
Reframing the Story - How shifting from a medical deficit model to a perspective of neurodivergence opens new possibilities
Learning from Lived Experience - My journey through trauma, misdiagnosis, and the discovery of hope as a pathway forward
The Spirituality of Awe - Finding wonder and meaning in the unique ways our loved ones experience the world
Hope Science in Practice - Concrete tools for building hope-centered relationships when traditional approaches fall short
Rewriting Your Stories - exploring the power of telling new stories to change lives
Throughout, you'll find Pause Points that invite you to reflect on your own journey and begin integrating these ideas into your life. These are also natural breaks in our journey and are good times to take breaks from reading. If at any point, during your reading, you feel restless, defensive, or lost, pause in your reading or just read the bold print. This isn't about abstract theory—it's about finding a new way to be in relationship with neurodivergent adults with more joy, greater hope, and less fear. Building forward takes time and patience. If you need support, feel free to contact me.
Pause Point: Before reading further, take a moment to notice what feelings arise when you see the word "neurodivergence" instead of "mental illness." Does something shift in your body? In your thoughts about your loved one?
Breaking Patterns, Building Bridges
When we connect with someone navigating neurodivergence, we enter a dance of discovery that reshapes how we understand human connection. These relationships—whether family, friendship, partnership, or community—naturally develop patterns over time that can either nurture or wound.
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Too often, these connections slip into shame-based patterns where the neurodivergent person becomes the unwitting scapegoat—blamed for tensions and challenges that actually belong to the relationship as a whole. This heartbreaking dynamic leaves everyone carrying unnecessary pain: the neurodivergent person shoulders burdens that were never theirs to bear, while others miss opportunities that might help them grow. This was, unfortunately, the case in generations of my family. Our scapegoats were alienated from the family and blamed for its dysfunction. Granted, there was great ignorance and shame about mental health in the 1800s and even into the late 20th century. The social stigma still remains to some degree.
But there's another possibility waiting to unfold. With gentle courage and fierce compassion, these same broken relationships can transform into hope-centered connections built on understanding, shared responsibility, and celebration of different ways of experiencing the world. I bear witness to this hope because I have experienced dramatic shifts in my family of origin as a result of honest and compassionate conversation around mental health.
The beautiful truth is this: It's never too late to evolve into a hope-centered relationship and family system.
To begin this transformation, we must first examine the messages we've internalized about mental health:
What psychological and pharmacological narratives have shaped your understanding of what's "normal"?
How have Western treatment approaches helped or possibly harmed your loved one?
What if we've been looking through too narrow a lens all along? What if we opened the aperture to a wider view?
Scholar and poet, Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, "To be thought ugly or unacceptable because one's beauty is outside the current fashion is deeply wounding to the natural joy that belongs to the wild nature.” (Estés, 1992) I feel this truth in my bones as someone born with a cleft lip and palate who has always wrestled with feeling ugly and unacceptable. Shame is a joy stealer. The stigma around neurodivergence and mental differences creates similar wounds—marking beautiful minds as broken simply because they operate outside "current fashion." Let’s start changing this today, and restore joy to loved one’s lives.
An Alternative Story Worth Considering
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Imagine this: what if we shifted our entire mindset away from the medical, pathological narrative and toward a wholistic, compassionate human story? Consider these possibilities:
All humans are born beloved, with innate gifts and abilities. What our culture labels as disorder and pathology might actually be misunderstood neurological differences rather than something fundamentally flawed. Our definitions of "normal" deserve questioning and expansion.
Every human story is fundamentally a love story—about connection lost and found, belonging broken and rebuilt. This is true for everyone, regardless of mental, physical, or emotional capabilities.
Your role matters profoundly. Who are you in your neurodivergent person’s life story? Are you someone they trust? Someone they can be authentically themselves with, even in their struggles?
What if the self isn't what we thought? While Freud mapped our minds like continents with rigid borders, newer psychological models invite us to see ourselves as living galaxies—constellations of parts dancing together in both harmony and creative tension. This perspective creates space for different ways of being in the world.
Pause Point: What story about neurodivergence or mental illness currently resonates for you? Is it primarily a medical narrative focused on symptoms? What would change if you began telling a story of unique gifts and different but equally valid ways of experiencing the world? What if you saw in your loved one the same precious beauty inherent in the sweet baby above?
Questions That Lead Toward Hope
I am a firm believer that the types of questions we ask set us up to receive a certain set of answers. When we ask new questions, we get new insights that might never have emerged from our familiar thought patterns. The questions below are invitations to see differently, to pause the problem-solving mind and allow a deeper wisdom to surface.
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Take a moment to sit with these invitations to deeper understanding. Let them wash over you gently like waves lapping against a shoreline, not demanding immediate answers but creating space for new possibilities to emerge.
What is beautiful about how your neurodivergent adult child expresses their humanness? Can you see beyond behaviors to the person?
Why are you so determined to "fix" your anxious partner? What fears drive this need?
What beliefs do you hold about emotional anguish, alternate perceptions of reality, personal agency, and risk-taking?
Have you considered that your neurodivergent sibling might have fundamentally different views shaped by their unique experiences that are as valid as your own views?
Is it possible your adult child has awareness of things beyond your understanding—and that this awareness carries its own wisdom?
How comfortable are you with ideas and experiences that don't align with your own worldview?
What might your neurodivergent spouse be trying to tell you that you've been unable or unwilling to hear?
Pondering questions like these open the door to new ways of thinking about our loved ones. I hope they create spaciousness in your mind and heart rather than make you feel squeamish or threatened. This is not about erasing your current beliefs about neurodivergence or Western therapeutic models, but simply an invitation to expand your thinking in new directions. It is preparing you for the next step on our journey, which is a demonstration of how the stories we believe shape what we think and believe about ourselves and others.
My Personal Mental Health Journey
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The Shadows Gather (My Thirties)
On my personal mental health journey, I remember how the darkness began creeping in during my thirties. What started as occasional bouts of depression gradually deepened into a persistent shadow that would follow me for the next two decades of my life. My marriage teetered on the edge, some days finding me curled on the closet floor, wondering if breathing was worth the effort. I took an array of medications and saw every therapist, psychiatrist and social worker with religious fervor. My hopes rose then fell on this wave of interventions purported to manage my moods and resolve my difficulties with daily function.
Over time, as interventions failed, I came to believe I was a deeply flawed human being. Something was fundamentally wrong with me that modern medicine could not fix. Healing felt impossibly distant. I felt trapped in a medical narrative that saw my struggles as symptoms needing management rather than signals pointing to deeper truths. My soul wasted away.
When Body and Mind Rebel (My Forties)
My forties brought not relief but deeper challenges that further compromised my already fragile mental health. The hormonal storms of perimenopause collided with family trauma, all while my body battled Lyme disease treatments that left me hollowed out and exhausted. My brain felt like it was operating through thick fog, my thoughts scattered and disjointed.
During this time, anxiety related to the unpredictable nature of family trauma completely hijacked my brain and my life. Every moment became a potential threat, every interaction a possible landmine. This constant state of hypervigilance turned my life into a waking and sleeping nightmare—my body never knew rest, my mind never knew peace. I lived in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight that exhausted every system in my body and mind.
I still believed the story that I was failing at life, failing at faith, failing at being normal. Psychiatry and psychiatric medications kept me functioning, but I felt like a zombie. The possibility that I might be a zombie for the rest of my life nearly ended my life.
It is important to note that I have a loving family of origin, loving husband and three wonderful kids. While they knew some of what I was going through, I was careful to hide as much of my troubles as possible. I believed they needed protection from my problems, and that I had to maintain a facade as competent spouse, mother, and sister. Shame also kept me silent.
The Breaking Point and Breakthrough (My Fifties)
By my fifties, the darkness had reached its peak. I was drowning in despair when a research discovery changed everything. While looking into infant surgery, I stumbled across an article revealing that until the 1980s, babies routinely received paralytics during surgery but often no general anesthesia. This meant many infants, including me, were fully awake during procedures—feeling everything but unable to move or cry out. This medical secret had been kept from most parents, including mine.
This revelation was both devastating and illuminating. For the first time, I could see how surgical trauma had literally shaped my developing brain. My emotional regulation, memory, and executive function challenges weren't signs of personal failure—they were my brain's adaptive response to early terror. Had I known this decades earlier, perhaps those twenty years of darkness might have been navigated differently, with self-compassion instead of shame.
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Reframing My Story (My Sixties)
Now in my sixties, I've become less fixated on finding the perfect diagnosis to explain my struggles. Yet recently, I recognized thought patterns matching the description of Borderline Personality Disorder—trouble understanding relationships, deep fear of abandonment, and intense emotional experiences.
My counselor listened with heart-open presence. Together, we explored these patterns not as something broken needing fixing, but as natural outcomes from trauma. We talked about possibilities rather than pathologies, understanding my borderline-like traits as my infant body and brain's reaction to surgical terror and hospital isolation from my parents.
This gentle reframing changed everything. I wasn't disordered—I was simply living in the present with a brain shaped by the past. This shift from "what's wrong with me?" to "what happened to me?" opened doors I never knew existed.
In their beautiful book What Happened to You?, Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey explore this exact perspective shift. As they write, "When you ask 'What's wrong with you?' you're starting from a position that suggests that something within the person is at fault rather than that something has happened to change the person." (Perry & Winfrey, 2021) This simple change in questioning created entirely new possibilities for healing. Instead of condemning myself while trying desperately to become "normal," I could offer my infant and child selves the tenderness they had always needed.
Beyond the Medical Model: Finding New Frameworks
This isn't just my story. Early trauma—whether from medical procedures, neglect, or other hardships—physically reshapes developing brains. It affects exactly the areas needed for self-regulation, memory processing, and building relationships. I suspect much of what we label mental illness may actually be adaptation to trauma—our bodies and brains doing exactly what they were designed to do under terrible circumstances.
I've come to understand that we all need a robust spiritual framework that gives meaning to our experiences, especially the complex territory of neurodivergence. My mistake for too many years was trying to force my reality into a Christian religious framework that couldn't hold or explain my lived experience. The language of sin and salvation couldn't make sense of my brain's unique wiring or my body's responses to early trauma. When our religious frameworks don't have room for our full selves—including our neurodivergence—we're left feeling like outsiders, as if our very existence is somehow wrong.
Finding a Spirituality That Holds All of Me
My healing journey took a giant leap, in my fifties, when I stepped away from my childhood faith. Searching for meaning, I discovered Buddhism's teachings on loving-kindness and compassion—ideas that offered new ways to hold my suffering. These practices created fertile ground where hope could eventually take root. They gave me back to myself.
Christian mysticism also became an unexpected refuge as I discovered Matthew Fox's revolutionary concept of "Original Blessing." (Fox, 1983) Where traditional doctrine told me I was born fundamentally flawed (a “sinner”), Fox's vision revealed that we come into this world already blessed—inherently good, worthy, and connected to the divine from our first breath. He showed how Christianity's earliest wisdom affirmed the sacredness of creation, including our human bodies and spirits. This profound shift told me I wasn't born a sinner but as someone beloved by divinity.
When I later discovered hope science, it offered something beautiful—new pathways forward. Where trauma had created mental tracks of fear and shame, hope science gave me alternative routes: pathways of possibility, connection, and meaning.
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Perhaps most surprisingly, hope helped me embrace my Christian heritage in an entirely new way. Where once I felt alienated from my religious upbringing, I discovered I could appreciate the Bible's poetry alongside Buddhism's wisdom. Today, I consider myself a "blooming sage" inviting wisdom from across traditions to my table. This open-hearted perspective is one of the unexpected gifts that emerged from my journey through trauma toward hope-centered living.
There's a beautiful case to be made for a neurodivergent spirituality, one that begins with this concept of original blessing. When we start from the understanding that our diverse minds are not mistakes but expressions of human possibility—each with unique gifts and perspectives to offer the world—everything changes. Our differences become doorways to deeper understanding rather than problems to be fixed. Our sensitivities become pathways to compassion rather than weaknesses to overcome. I suspect that an inclusive spirituality that appeals to neurodivergent minds may also resonate for folks with minds shaped in typical fashion.
The Self as Solar System: A New Understanding
Today, I'm struck by how easily my story could have ended in a psychiatric ward (like my great grandmother), suicide (like my grandfather), or a series of emotional breakdowns. I am flourishing today, but not because I have any extraordinary abilities. Rather, something within me refused to give up. In my darkest hours, somebody whispered that there was purpose yet to be fulfilled, work that only I could do in this world.
This is where understanding ourselves as more than single, fixed entities becomes so healing. The parts of me that longed to die and escape my suffering weren't the entirety of who I was. The parts that whispered "keep going" when all seemed lost weren't just wishful thinking—they were wisdom keepers holding space for a future I couldn't yet imagine. Today, I can recognize these different aspects of myself and use gentle tools to bring my inner world back into balance when it tilts toward overwhelm and chaos.
Pause Point: Reflecting on Your Journey
What parts of your adult child's inner system might be holding wisdom that isn't immediately apparent?
How might you create space to honor those parts rather than focusing only on the aspects that cause you worry?
Think of a story where you felt frustrated or confused by your loved one's neurodivergent behavior. How might this story change if you reframed it through the lens of "what happened to them" rather than "what's wrong with them"?
What spiritual framework or meaning-making system helps you make sense of your loved one's neurodivergence? Does it leave room for seeing their differences as gifts rather than problems?
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The Spirituality of Awe
One practice that has kept me going all these years is finding reasons to live. When darkness feels overwhelming, the most powerful reasons are those that connect us to something greater than ourselves. All these reasons have one thing in common - they are moments of awe. Consider the following: sunset on a beach; perennial flowers that grow year after year; standing sturdy on a rotating planet thanks to gravity; puppies attacking your toes with delight. I call this the “spirituality of awe.” It includes moments that make us giggle, cry, hold our breath, or fall to our knees with gratitude.
Remarkably, this isn't just poetic language—it's backed by neuroscience. Research shows that experiences of awe actually reduce activity in the default mode network of our brains—the area associated with self-focus and rumination—while activating regions linked to connection and broader perspective-taking (Stellar et al., 2017, p. 128). In simple terms, awe helps us get out of our worried minds and into a larger, more peaceful reality.
The benefits of cultivating awe extend far beyond momentary relief. Studies from the University of California, Berkeley have found that regular experiences of awe decrease inflammation in the body, increase prosocial behaviors like generosity, and significantly reduce stress hormones (Keltner & Haidt, 2023, p. 47). In one fascinating study, researchers found that even just a 60-second experience of awe expanded participants' perception of available time, making them feel less rushed and more patient—a precious gift for parents navigating complex relationships (Rudd et al., 2012, p. 1132).
I remember standing on a mountain top at sunset, watching the moon rise. As the day’s light faded and the night sky awakened with tiny pinpoints of light, something shifted. My problems—which had seemed all-consuming on the climb upward—found their proper scale. I wasn't diminished by this perspective but expanded by it.
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This practice of wonder isn't limited to nature. We can experience it in our relationships too. Think of the first time you held a newborn baby—how time seemed to stop as you gazed at tiny fingers and toes, the miracle of new life breathing in your arms. In that moment, you weren't analyzing or fixing—you were simply present with awe. This same quality of attention can transform how we see our neurodivergent loved ones, helping us notice the miraculous even amidst challenge.
When we practice genuine wonder before the mysteries of existence—whether in nature, art, music, or the extraordinary complexities of the human mind—our relationship with fear transforms. The experience of awe can be a powerful antidote to both fear and grief, not by erasing these emotions but by giving them a larger context where they no longer consume us.
This practice of wonder stands in direct opposition to our society's preference for sameness, consumerism, and blind obedience. It celebrates the wild diversity of creation and human minds, and trusts that this diversity serves a purpose in our collective flourishing.
When we view ourselves and others through the lens of awe, we reconnect with the truth that we all carry the imprint of the divine. We are made in the image of the same creator who designed galaxies and microorganisms with equal care. This isn't religious sentiment—it's recognition of the profound magnificence inherent in every human being, regardless of how their minds work.
Pause Point: When was the last time you experienced genuine awe? How might cultivating more moments of wonder change how you see yourself and your loved one?
Hope Science in Practice: Your Pathway Forward
This is where hope science becomes not just theory but practical medicine for navigating neurodivergence. It offers concrete tools for building a hope-centered approach to life's deepest challenges. As simple as it may sound, the search for a reason to live, or a spirituality of awe, are beautiful goals worth our pursuit. And, as you will discover, creating meaningful goals is one aspect of hope science.
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The research shows that hope consists of three essential elements working together: meaningful goals to move toward, multiple pathways to reach them, and the belief that we can take necessary action. When we strengthen these elements, we don't just feel more hopeful—we become more capable of creating rich, fulfilling lives. (Hellman & Gwinn, 2019)
For parents, caregivers, partners and friends of neurodivergent adults, our most profound goal is the continued growth of love in our relationship—creating connection that honors both their uniqueness and our shared humanity. This goal may sound simple, but it's revolutionary in a world that often measures success through independence, achievement, and economic success.
Below are pathways we can take toward reaching this goal of deepened connection:
1. Reconnect with wonder
Take time each day for quiet reflection on your loved one’s unique gifts
Notice when fear narrows your thinking about possibilities
Practice seeing beyond labels to the whole person
Try this: Each morning, write down one quality you admire in your loved one that has nothing to do with their diagnosis
2. Find the calm in the storm
When chaos swirls, practice locating the center where peace exists
Recognize when you're being pulled into reactivity
Create a simple phrase that anchors you: "This moment is not forever" or "I can hold both pain and possibility"
Try this: Create a small space in your home that represents tranquility—visit it when overwhelmed
3. Build connection rituals that honor autonomy
Develop ways of connecting that don't focus on symptoms or treatment
Share meals, stories, music, or nature walks without agenda
Practice listening without trying to fix
Try this: Ask your loved one what makes them feel most seen and respected, then do more of that
4. Create community beyond the medical model
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Find or build support circles that focus on wholeness, not just challenges
Connect with other families walking similar paths
Seek communities that embrace complexity and different ways of being
Try this: Start a monthly gathering focused on sharing moments of unexpected joy
5. Rewrite the family narrative
Notice when you're telling a story of brokenness and consciously shift toward one of wholeness
Collect and celebrate evidence of your loved one’s gifts and strengths
Acknowledge pain without making it the whole story
Try this: change the language used in story telling.
My example: I used to obsess over which diagnostic labels best described my experiences, believing the "right" diagnosis would lead to being "fixed." Now, I use poetry and stories to express my inner world and ask my therapist to meet me there. This shift from medical language to creative expression has led to being truly seen as a whole person, not a symptoms cluster.
The final essential element of hope is believing in our own capacity to change—trusting that we can shift patterns of relating that may have grown rigid over time. Many of us have developed habits of worrying, fixing, managing, or controlling that, despite our best intentions, create distance rather than connection. The truth is that we can learn new ways of being in relationship, even after decades of established patterns. Our brains and hearts remain remarkably adaptable throughout our lives, capable of creating new pathways toward flourishing together.
Pause Point: Which of these practices resonates most strongly with you right now? What's one small step you could take today to begin incorporating it into your life?
The Sacred Journey of Sovereignty
At its core, this journey is about reclaiming sovereignty—both yours and your loved one’s. It's about refusing to surrender your power to systems that reduce the glorious complexity of human experience to diagnostic codes and medication regimens.
This sovereignty is deeply connected to our spiritual nature and to hope-centered living. Each of us, regardless of how our minds work, carries the imprint of the divine—the same creative force that crafted towering redwoods and tiny ants. We are, all of us, walking miracles formed in the image of an extraordinary artist.
When we forget this truth—when we reduce ourselves or our loved ones to their symptoms or challenges—we lose something essential. Our adult children, spouses, siblings, and friends with neurodivergence need us to remember and reflect back to them this fundamental belovedness. They need us to see beyond what society labels as broken to the sacred wholeness that remains undiminished by any diagnosis.
Rewriting Our Stories
This doesn't mean rejecting all that Western psychology and medicine offer. Rather, it means holding these tools lightly, using what serves life and wholeness while questioning what diminishes the human spirit.
The story we tell about neurodivergence dictates how we live with it. Where the dominant narrative says our loved ones are broken and must be fixed, I urge you to embrace the deeper truth—that they are beloved and wholly, unapologetically human in unique and remarkable ways.
This alternative narrative isn't created in psychiatric offices or pharmaceutical labs. It's forged in families brave enough to stand in awe before the mystery of different minds. It's nurtured in communities that celebrate neurodiversity rather than pathologizing it. It's embodied by parents who refuse to give up on the possibility of joy, connection, and meaning—even when the path looks nothing like what they expected.
The belief in our inherent worthiness—that we are all beloved children of the universe—is the heartbeat that carries us through despair, grief, and rage to the other side: unconditional love. This isn't just spiritual poetry; it's the practical foundation for hope when circumstances offer little reason for ideal outcomes.
The path to hope-centered living isn't about denying reality—it's about widening our vision to include all of reality, including the possibility of beauty and meaning amid struggle. It's about trusting that even when the path forward isn't clear, taking one small step in faith often reveals the next step.
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Remember, in our previous post, we discussed the Japanese art of kintsugi? In kintsugi art, broken pottery is repaired with gold, creating something more beautiful than before. Your heart is being remade this way too—more resilient, more compassionate, and increasingly capable of holding both heartbreak and hope as you love someone navigating neurodivergence.
A brighter tomorrow becomes possible when we build hope-centered lives not despite our circumstances but through them—where each family member and friend finds their unique healing path, where joy returns alongside sorrow, and where new forms of connection emerge across the challenging terrain of different minds meeting in love.
Loving Well
As we come to the close of these thoughts, I want to acknowledge this truth: the path we're walking isn't linear. There will be days when hope feels as natural as breathing, when you'll see your loved one’s unique brilliance with perfect clarity. And there will be days when old fears resurface, when the weight of neurodivergent uncertainty and chaos feels too heavy to carry.
This journey lasts a lifetime. And that's exactly as it should be, because this is the real work of living. Despite what our achievement-oriented society might suggest, there isn't anything more important than learning to love well through complexity and challenge.
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Every human story, at its core, is a love story. We're born into love—complicated, imperfect, but real—in our families of origin. Not our choice. Who we love along the way seems guided more by magnetic, mysterious forces than practical considerations. And if we have children, we certainly don't choose how they come into this world, who they become, or how their minds work. We only choose, again and again, how and if to love them through it all. Sadly, some people try and opt out of love. They grow mean and selfish, but opting out is impossible. Because love is everywhere!
And isn't that the marvelous thing? If left to our own devices, most of us would love with complete and utter selfishness. Instead, life gives us these extraordinary opportunities to learn to love others without condition. A neurodivergent child. A struggling parent. A partner whose mind works differently from our own. These people aren't obstacles to happiness—they're invitations to the deepest growth our souls will ever know.
This is the point of it all. Not perfection or ease, but the gradual expansion of our hearts to hold more complexity, more wonder, more love. On this path, every moment becomes an opportunity to practice the spirituality of awe, to choose hope over fear, to remember that we—all of us—are beloved beyond measure.
So tonight, when you look at yourself in the mirror and contemplate a neurodivergent loved one, try to see with fresh eyes. Beyond the worry. Beyond the diagnosis. See the divine spark that has been there all along, waiting for you to notice it again. And in that sacred moment, may both your hearts find a moment of peace in the knowledge that you are exactly where you need to be—learning, together, what it means to love.
I invite you to join me in this practice of loving beyond labels and diagnoses—it may be the most challenging journey we'll ever undertake, but I believe with my whole heart that it's also the most sacred and healing path available to us. Feel free to reach out to me when you feel stuck on this journey.
With all my heart, Chrissy
Notes
This post was created with assistance from Anthropic. (2025). Claude.ai (3.7Sonnet) [hybrid reasoning model]. https://claude.ai The final content reflects the author's views, research, and editorial decisions
Estés, C. P. (1995). Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Ballantine Books.
Perry, B. D., & Winfrey, O. (2021). What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. Flatiron Books.
Fox, M. (1983). Original Blessing: A Primer In Creation Spirituality. Bear & Company.
Hellman, C. M., & Gwinn, C. (2019). Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life. Morgan James Publishing.
©2025 Root & Wick Coaching. All Rights Reserved.
