 All right, so tonight we are going to be reflecting upon redefining your relationship with work. Bring Club, of course, is our education program designed to provide education about neurodiversity and, more than that, to bring people together based on a shared vision of what's possible and to contribute to systems change by shifting social norms. By learning together, unlearning together, promoting new ways of thinking and being. Of course, this is not for medical or mental health advice. It's not a support group all brains blog has programs like this, but this one's an education program. It's not a place to discuss or solve individual specific problems or process trauma, and it's also not a neurodivergent affinity space we welcome everyone here, anyone here coming to learn and learn. You can participate however you are most comfortable, as many of you have figured out if you've been here a while you can have your video on or off, and even if it's on we do not expect anything of you. So feel free to walk and remove or fidget or stem or eat, take breaks, whatever you need. And you're welcome to communicate in whatever form you are most comfortable. There'll be a portion of tonight's brain club with a prerecorded panel that run a little over 20 minutes. So during that time we'll have the chat is the way that you can communicate but after after that you're welcome to use mouth words or type in the chat. So chat to messaging or private messaging is also enabled so you're welcome to send messages and questions that way too. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity. We prioritize safety and the cult the needs of the collective so giving space for others to process. And, you know, we try our best to navigate what we call conflicting access needs the idea that we all have different brains. We all have different needs, but and inevitably those needs are going to conflict from time to time. Access needs being of course anything that anyone needs for full and meaningful participation. We talk a lot about access needs here at brain club. So speaking which close captioning is enabled you just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of zoom you might see the lab transcript closed captioning icon. But if not look for the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles and you can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to actually open the chat because I always forget. The chat the chat is a great example of conflicting access needs. There are many brains that find the chat to be a really important accommodation to be able to communicate without mouth words, also to be able to like get your thoughts out as soon as they come to mind. Also to like have the conversation not necessarily happened to have happened like right here so you have a thought like maybe takes a few minutes to percolate and then you have something to share. So the chat is a way of doing that. And of course that more people can share ideas than would possibly have time to speak out loud. It's also a way of directly engaging with fellow community members and to meet people that way and to even make arrangements to continue your conversations offline. On the flip side there are lots of brains, maybe even the same brains for whom the chat can be really distracting. And like sometimes there's this startle response when it pops up and sometimes it moves really fast and it can be really visually cluttering. So yeah, this is a great example of conflicting access needs. So, our suggestions for navigating conflicting access needs because a lot of people talk about this. After you see a chat pop up, and it's bothering you, try not closing the window. This way when more chat messages come it'll replace the old messages but won't have the pop up thing. There's also this thing called chat preview. You can turn it off. There's a little up carrot next to the chat window. You click on that little upward facing triangle thing and click on the word no chat previews and that checkbox will go away. And last thing about the chat, still talking about the chat. If we're going to use the chat, we just ask that you just type in the main box instead of using the reply threads. You can certainly tag a person by typing the at symbol and their name if you want to get their attention. But the reply thread thing has people's like bouncing up and down on the chat. Okay, I'm done. So, we are continuing our February 2024 theme of connection is path to health. So, when we think about all of the different ways, all of the different domains of life that contribute to health like work is a place we spend a lot of time. And for a lot of people work does not work for our brains. And that's why we talk about employment a lot here at all brains belong. What we know is that autistic and ADHD adults are far more likely to struggle with employment. Depending on what study you read autistic adults are two and a half to eight times more likely to be unemployed or underemployed 75% of each year's experience employment related challenges. And what we know is that employment and health are related in both directions. What we don't want and what we have far too often is the square peg that is hammered to fit into the round hole. It's like shoving, you know, like society shoves people into containers that do not work. And what happens, you break the peg. When we think about all of the different types of access needs that play out in work, whatever type of employment scenario someone is in or not in. When work does not work, it is often because of unmet access needs. And when we think about all of the different ways that humans are othered in this society, you know, if you are othered for aspects of race or gender sexuality or class or any of it. And then that intersects with having your access needs thwarted and your disability or your neurodivergence. We have a lot of people that are left out of a lot of things. What we know is that social inequity plays out and impacts everything's a really busy slide. But the concept being that when we think about access to basic needs in society. Having access to employment is like can is a has a really huge impact on all of them. And before we begin talking about relationship with work. I don't think we can talk about relationship with work without talking about class and everything that goes into class and class culture. So class defined by Kessel and Berkfield in parenting for social justice, you know, one of our favorite books here at brain club with the idea that there is relative social hierarchy, ranking in terms of income wealth status power. So people have different access to resources. So the combination of access to resources, you know, your relationship to work whether you're respected whether you belong whether you have power to do what needs doing in your life. And then of course, as I as I mentioned, the intersectionality of all the different identity characteristics that also come to impact access to resources. So these prompts from the team I think again training and consulting relationship to work has many things. Why do we work. How do we feel or think we should feel about our work with the relationship between paid work and other parts of life. So the emotional relationship to the economic system the economic system being capitalism and depending on, you know, all kinds of factors that you may have a different different relationship to the economic system. Be what's even been modeled about work for you even an early childhood when we're laying down our initial beliefs about the world. And these intersectional factors. So, for the next 20 minutes or so we are going to hear from some of our community members. And we'll, we'll, what we've done is we've taken perspectives and experiences we've intermixed them. And I think I think we'll hear some some familiar themes but also some some differences across people's experiences, and then we'll have plenty of time for conversation afterwards. So David, take it away really think we need to reimagine work. Don't tells you that your value comes from what you produce, which is of course bogus, you know the more productive you are the whatever and like the idea of like work work has become so removed from. I don't know, meaning purpose identity and like it doesn't need to be those things but for some people it is those things and there's this, you know, tension so I don't know for for you. I'd love to know how do you personally define the concept of work. It's interesting, because my definition of work has changed. So I started working when I was 17 at a answering service. And from there. I loved it. I love talking to people. I like that I wasn't in front of them. I enjoyed that part. And I, from there went into a sales position. And I really, I liked that it was a little bit harder to like deal with people, but I found that I was really good with computers. I had already taken some computer classes in school. So I really got into into technology. People are like on this, like this path of like, this is your menu of options in your life and like you pick one of them. In an ideal world, how do you enter the workforce. Entering the workforce, there is to an extent a leap you have to start somewhere. So the company that I worked for they sold cell phones. So I had my first cell phone while I was working there. And I did stay in sales for a little while I had sold cars, but it was hard having that face to face. And I was really horrible at breaking the ice. It was very challenging for me to like talk about. Interesting things I guess for people and then I would, I would hyper like think about that and then it would make me even more isolated. And you're in that plot process of exploring and reflecting so finding something that feels like it matches your identity your needs your values, but accepting that there will be a level of compromise. I mean work is work. People work ideally not just for the paycheck, but part of it is because there's a paycheck. My upbringing, my father was a sales rep and he worked really, really hard. He didn't have a high school diploma and he was like a hero to me because he worked so hard for our family. And it wasn't easy because he I could see the struggle that he had. And my mother was always like maybe not quite an executive assistant, but pretty close to that. And she had really good work ethic. That's what I thought I was supposed to do. You know, I thought that I was supposed to find this job and that I would just be really good at it. And, you know, it would be amazing. It was hard. As kitchens tend to attract multiply marginalized people because I've been in a lot of kitchens with other trans folks with other neurodivergent folks where it's like, okay, so these expectations are built around cis bodies and one neuro type. And my body actually can't be here for 12 hours. Otherwise I start having heart palpitations. Healthy employment relationship is like all relationships, families, friends, romantic, it should be bi-directional. You should be putting something in but also getting something back. So as you're exploring different types of work and ways to integrate into the workforce, be careful to not only be assessing yourself but be assessing the context and how you perform in that context. And also what those employers offer and how they create fit as well. There's two sides to that. And often it's all too easy to go internal and take all the responsibility at work or didn't work because of me, but that's not really how it is. And then you add on top of that the personal life stressors that can come up. And any of those things, one can have difficulty, I can have difficulty managing, become dysregulated. The hyper focus means that I tend to get and stay distracted from work. Those are all stressors and then once I get like any of those stressors, you know, that can start to lead that it goes unresolved can lead to, it really gets me into a vicious cycle of a dysregulation spiral. So I get, I get stressed out, I get anxious that which leads to mental and physical tension. I go into defensive behaviors, worry, self protective avoidance, distraction. There's this regulation, including sleep, which leads to less capacity for attention, less capacity for motor skills and motor planning less executive functioning, which then can lead to more and bigger mistakes. So hyper focus getting stuck on the wrong details, self justification and externalizing blame attack has perceived sources of threat, of which go over really well in a work environment, leading to more fit more negative feedback, possible discipline job loss, bad reviews that limit my potential to advance and my potential for access to organizational power and privilege that could actually help me fix the problems that are affecting me. The idea of shifting social norms through community connection with this vision of like, what, what, like, can I rethink some things in my life that aren't working for me or maybe are working for me and can I learn about my access needs in that way. It was really hard for me to get into that social place of like knowing how to interact with people in the office, and then also how to break away and do my job is if I was having trouble. I'm very good with routine so you know you give me a spreadsheet or a Word document like I know how to write a letter. I'm very good with grammar. If it was out of that wheelhouse that would be a lot more challenging for me and that's when I started to notice a lot more I mean I had already noticed differences growing up, but I didn't really like what I was doing. When we think about work in terms of like meaningful occupation often like the meaningfulness of that is kind of left out and think the most important thing is to build that framework of assessing and reflecting. Like, I like these things I think these are important characteristics I think this is my identity and then exploring it and reflecting on how you responded, but not holding yourself to a very specific definition of who you are what your identity is or what's important because that will change over time so it's more about having that framework to explore it than it is to identify yourself, and it will continue to change throughout adulthood. It's about having a structure to reflect and assess and explore more so than it is like figuring it out because just as you figure it out, we are people and we are dynamic and we change. And at a young age I realized well we're working because we have to so that we live this life so that we have cars we can buy clothes we can have a house because that's all I was thinking like I'm supposed to, you know make this so much money at whatever age I'm supposed to have children at this age and I'm supposed to have a house like there's this timeline that I'm supposed to follow and it was very challenging for me and I would always be like why why do I have to do this. And it's not working for me like what is supposed to happen isn't happening. And I would tell people I'm like we're working because we have to but if we didn't have to would we be working. What how do you define work what does work mean to you like this starts so much earlier than entering the workforce. An important consideration for work that is often overlooked is how it matches a person's individual values. And that can happen in a lot of ways you can directly approach a value like I like helping other people and work in human services. But I think sometimes we we fall short at expanding that definition if you like helping people you can also work in retail or in customer service. So overlaying what your values are with what the job is and how it feels and and operates practically. So part of that is assessing your values and those will change over time and there's no right and wrong values necessarily so it's there's a level of self understanding in that exploration and they use exploration intentionally because work can be a way to explore those values or how to tap into them. I think it's very often we talk about like like what we do like for work rather than who we are and the gifts we have to offer to our communities. So being able to share our gifts sometimes our gifts might be tied to the work that we do. But sometimes our gifts are not tied that we could be artists we can be we can be other things in our lives that often don't get to be shared in our workplace or in our communities. I think people don't realize that maybe they're really good at doing something right but they don't enjoy it but it's what they do and they're getting money doing this but at the end of the day they're just like that wasn't a fulfilling day. I could see really drilling into what are the benefits of workplaces and the benefits of being a worker. And who are those benefits for and who are they not for like how are things by design right now either working or not working. Where are those gaps in our in the safety nets that support workers or that could support everyone. But I this is where I start to think about we talk about benefit cliffs we talk about the sort of that increasing space where workers are earning more but not having safety nets that keep pace. And therefore in an unintended consequence of actually taking people out of work right the idea of like we want people to be in the workplace but if they don't have the supports they need for stability in their housing and stability in their healthcare. They will only work so much where they can't keep working and they will come out because that's how they get their basic needs met and the resources they rely on and that's a stuck place for a lot of people who who would like to be unstuck. A lot of people work in areas that tend toward exploitation and dehumanization. And some of those folks are like I'm just doing this until like, I make it in a creative field I'm just doing this until I am finished with this certification that's going to let me do this job that I really care about. And some people are like I've been forced to do this because of racism because of classism and discrimination and hiring practices, so on and so forth. And some of us are there because we want to be and because we think that it's important that people do those jobs and that whether you are working a job that tends towards exploitation and dehumanization. You and your day to day life are profiting from other people working those jobs whether it's buying your coffee at a coffee shop that a barista makes, or like going to the grocery store where someone is stocking the shelves. Those are jobs that like are inherently like full of dignity like that work matters on a fundamental level and is important and is noble and like, even if you want to do it being treated poorly doing those kinds of jobs can really weigh on you and like it's important that you're doing that work, whether you continue to do it or not it's you should be proud of it. We all, all people to an extent want to contribute something and offer and help in some way. You might want to find a way to meet that psychological need through your work where you can contribute and help others, or you may have robust opportunities outside of work where you don't need to use work to balance that idea of like a person growing up over time. And this idea of like more like a holistic transition that starts way earlier this path is path to thriving right like like can you can you can you talk about that for me thriving flourishing is the goal, whether it's at work personally it's it's about personal flourishing and thriving and how does work contribute to that. And it can do it in different ways is it helping you expand your boundaries or push your horizons, or is it reinforcing a strength and some part of your identity and how you self identify. Does it give you community. Does it expose you to new community. Yeah, I think that's really important because I think a lot of times it's like accidental how your path evolves like the experiences you have the people you're around, whether it's whether these experiences are are farming, like even I mean there are people, I mean let's even think about, you know, transitioning youth right like so this idea of, you know, you make it to middle school, and you're like, I don't know I don't do I really know what I like. Do I know what I like do I know what I dislike do I know what's even important to me I don't know because there's all these social pressures that say conform conform, and the bigger picture, the bigger the systems that you are in are explicitly training you to conform and comply and like that is so counter to this idea of this individualistic thriving, I think often There are jobs roles positions out there that don't name our gifts but that we have the offer that would be beneficial to our communities. And so we call that opportunity creation where we take people's gifts and create opportunity for that for them to maybe possibly make a living out of that thing and be able to thrive. Tell me what does what does that look like that sounds incredible. So I'll give you I'll give you a really great example and I'll just, I mean I think I can name names. I don't think she would mind at all but I'll name the names because I think it's an excellent recent example of opportunity in which we have many. So Anna, Anna is a Latina woman in the state of Vermont, who, when we were trying to do not trying when we were putting together a BIPOC financial wellness empowerment program. We had some expertise in this area. And so we, along with another individual Shonda were able to create financial 101, 102, 103 financial wellness series for BIPOC people through the intellectual through the vision of the intellectual property of these individuals and be able to share that in an affinity space with BIPOC to help lift them up in their financial literacy wellness awareness and education. Through that program, we then created another program that was a BIPOC centered home buyers program, where we prioritize BIPOC people and their partners to being able to have the information skills and resources that they need to buy homes because in the history of BIPOC people tried to own homes. There are still racist policies that are on the books that prevent us from being able to access resources that maybe other people who are who are not of color can access. Through this we partnered with Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust, one of our local affordable housing agencies here in southern Vermont, and ultimately be through relationship and through those gifts that Anna held, we were able to hire her for this program. And she was able to develop a full program for her own ideas of what this looked like through her own trainings, through her own awareness, through her own experiences and create a curriculum for this home buyers program with collaboration with the route with collaboration from Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust, where we served over 20 BIPOC households in this programming. This now has turned into, now Anna is employed by Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust. And she is starting the BIPOC financial empowerment program that is her own gifts that will carry throughout the state providing these tools and resources and awareness to primarily our BIPOC communities. And so not only did she get to share gifts, she got to make connections and relationships, and she got got to be paid what she is worth for and valued for who she is. And this is just as one example of many opportunity creations that we've been able to create specifically prioritizing BIPOC communities. An incredible story, so you really, it's like, it's identifying the strengths of individuals within your community and investing in them, not only are they serving, like you're investing in them, they are investing in the community, and you've created, like together you've created something that didn't exist before. Do you have any advice for people who are stuck in a workplace culture, because they have also been taught like you got a job you do the thing you know so you can do the things right like advice for people who they like. They know they need freedom they know they need autonomy but like they they don't imagine they could possibly start their own thing. Right. Hope has always been what's driven me. And I have always thought that if there was opportunity, and you might not have it right now it might not even be tomorrow. The job that I had before we started limelight restoration. I decided to be a little different with my resume. And I'm very good with resumes and it was always like, you know, you put where you worked and then all the stuff that you did. And I'm like but I do so much more than that like I have way more to offer than just office stuff right. On my resume. I put that I can run heavy equipment. I can, I drive four wheelers like I put all of my, like country girl side on my resume on purpose is incorporating so many of my personal interests that I like. So, what I have to say with where people are maybe feeling stuck in there unhappy, because they're doing the thing that they think they're good at and that's all they're good at. What do you do when you're not at work. What could you put on your resume, because those are skills, you don't have to have a job that said you can do this if if you're a great seamstress or you're good at, you know, marketing stuff and making things. I think that there's a different way of looking at jobs that you may have not thought you were qualified for. If you look at it as an overall picture of what you can provide. When I have gone for interviews in the past. When I was younger, it was so intimidating and scary. As I got older, I learned that they're interviewing me for the job, but I'm also interviewing them because I don't know if I want to work here. I've been let go before I have had people not like me stand up for myself. And I didn't want to work for a company where I didn't have a voice, because I have a lot to say. You know, I think that people should not be afraid to tell their employer what they need or that they're sick or that they can't come in. We're caught in systems that we prop up that we have to navigate and cobble together. And we think the system is bigger than us, but this is but that really it's us like we are the ones that have a role in this and we can disrupt it. Yes. And I think like, you know, like we were talking about this morning with like email, like all the chaos that comes in right like so you have to you have to be able to have the, the spaciousness to zoom out to reimagine and when you're like in the weeds in the chaos, you don't do that so you like stick to the systems because it preserves your bandwidth, even though that known quantity is ruining your life for it so I don't know what my access needs are necessarily, but I'm in situations that either work for me, or they don't work for me. And when they don't work for me. You know, when someone for example has this frame of access. My access needs were not met. It's not like because because I think sometimes if we don't explicitly name that that bidirectional relationship that interaction of environment and person. That's the idea of this is about a goodness of fit for that person in different environments with different people, people like that if that frame was not explicitly named for many brains, they don't have it. And so they go they move through the world thinking that there is that they really aren't explicitly I mean a lot of implicit but explicitly like this is how we do the thing. This is how you apply for a job. This is how you interview like this is how you show up this is how you sit still in your classroom. This is like a line up in kindergarten like it's one way. As opposed to this like the idea we talk a lot about at brain club about the double empathy problem, where, you know, like, it's not that there's like one correct way to communicate it's about it's it's it's this relationship of person, you know, this mismatch of perspective taking way of seeing the world communication style and like that's where the breakdowns happen. I think it's very important to recognize that it's okay for it not to be the right fit. It applies to really everything that that you so it can apply to work relationships that can work with you know friendships romantic partnerships it's like it's everything it's it's okay, especially because as people change or of course their life they need different things. Exactly. I think it's less about, can I do the job. Did I do the job was I go to the job and more about the fit which is half you and half the context and and how you're supported in it. Yeah, and because a person changes over time organizations change over time to and that like divergence is okay. And I think that then like, we bring in elements of, you know, abandonment and like attachment issues that come into you know rejection sensitive dysphoria I need to tell my employer that it's time for me to go oh you know like how dare you you know just like all this stuff that really then someone goes off into their world and these, these experiences I think stay in people's nervous systems and they go into even healthy work environments and they really have trauma physiology. I think that if you're looking for a job if you're in a current job and you're not happy, somehow you need to find your voice even if you would need someone to advocate for you to step in and say hey, you know, can you use the language that I need for my employer so they understand what I need, because people don't need to be getting fired because they're standing up for themselves and certainly think that there's ways that employers can be sensitive to a variety of stressors and sort of, you know do this universal online thing, but it still doesn't get away from the power imbalance. There are people who they, they are working, but they're being harmed like actively harmed at their places of employment. And they, you know, it's like, it's like a privilege to be able to say like I'm going to look at what do I want to do with my life like the idea of vision casting is like such a higher level brain thing when you're like in the trenches trying to live. And anyway, I, I really would love to figure out, and maybe it's about partnering with other organizations like all brains belong as like a little startup nonprofit like we can't hire all of our patients to do stuff, and like make enough money to support themselves enough to leave the terrible jobs where they're, you know, they're being discriminated against and traumatized all day long. But I think it comes with relationships. It's about how can we collaborate? How can we figure out where are the points that we really meet together, right? Where is those intersectionalities that we can support each other? Where are those crossovers? And it's about, it's about brainstorming, right? You know, fun intended, like, like really coming together, having that think tank to come together to see, to see more of what's possible because exactly what you said is like, now we're not paying Anna anymore. Those that money is coming from a variety of other different places. And that's what we can do is we can leverage our relationships and connections with the resources that all of us have when we come together and we're really willing to make that commitment to each other. So I think that's what's most important. First off, thank you so much to all of our panelists. Such wisdom there. I want to scroll up to a comment in the chat. Taylor says, this idea of redefining what constitutes important or real work has really helped me to get to a better place mentally. I think a lot of people have been damaged by the idea that the amount of money you make determines if you should be okay with the things that you're doing. Obviously, we need to be able to afford to live beyond that one's happiness and health and to be put at the forefront. And I want to combine that with what Chris just said, I like, I merged those ideas in my head about like being in the trenches in face with so many decisions about what to financially prioritize food or meds or anything else. And just all of that so complicated. What's standing out for others? I really enjoyed what Summer was saying about kind of just like being able to look at what you love doing, even if it's not something that you've ever thought about as being connected to employment. And, you know, that's when I was saying it kind of reminds me of how we talk about a culture of interdependence like, what are the things that we love to do that give us dopamine that tap into our natural strengths. And sometimes it's hard to recognize those if we've grown up in sort of this traditional capitalistic society, being able to step out of that framework can be challenging. But I think that's a helpful perspective to just kind of like zoom out and look at what do we love to do? What did you love to do when you were 10 years old? You know, and really think kind of before all the social conditioning, you know, really tapping into what gives us joy. Right. And I think when you're in the trenches, struggling to have basic needs met, like the idea of like vision casting or like even remembering what it was to be regulated and what you did to meet that happened, like that seems so far out of reach for so many people. Monique. Hi everyone, Monique here. Kind of leaping off of what Sarah just said about finding joy and those sparks and I am in my late 50s. And so when I was starting out to find work. I didn't know that I was autistic and I didn't have those terms and my parents are both, they both have their own interesting brains. And I appreciate the way that they raised me. My dad was a carpenter and he built these, he would spend two or three years building these fantastic houses. And they were all custom built and they were weird and they were wonky. And he was essentially just continuing to build forts throughout his life. It was just an extension of childhood. And I worked with him when I was in my teens, I would go to work with him and he instilled in me the principle to find work that I loved. And then it wouldn't be labor like it would pay the bills and probably give me more because I would enjoy doing it so I would do it well and I would excel at it, and people would see my inspiration, my fire my passion about it so I'm really glad that he instilled that in me, and they never judged me for anything that I chose to do for work. And then in thinking about this upcoming this week's topic I was thinking about work that I enjoyed over the years and I worked as a barista at a coffee shop and I, at Starbucks, I'll name it. And it was in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s up until the mid 90s, and I loved it. And because it was it was predictable. It was clear what the expectations were clear. There was a procedure manual back in the staff room like everything was was laid out and it was clear, and it was fun and we got to listen to music and I got to interact with them in a couple of minutes and then they would go away. It was awesome. And it just, like, it lit me up in so many different ways. And I eventually became a counselor, and I was a counselor for many decades, and I remember to get certified I had to be a counselor. And I was constantly being, what's the word I'm looking for, reprimanded by my supervisor because I would share too much she told me that I was too relational in the counseling sessions. And now I understand that is double empathy but at the time I didn't have the conversation I didn't have the terminology or the understanding for it. So just, just last week I ran into her she's a neighbor of mine. I've been a supervisor for 2023 years, and I ran into her and I actually we had a good conversation about neurodivergence and specifically specifically autism, and how the way that I was engaging with the people that I was in a counseling relationship with was relational because that was how I relate to people that was double empathy at play. And it was a good conversation but I just, I'm just looking back over the work that I've done. It's interesting to see how I, I made it work for me and it may not have been traditional and it may not have looked the way that other people were doing it. But it was the way that I could do it. And it was fulfilling to me and it was fulfilling to the people who came into my work. Okay, check. I love that Monique and I think so often right and I know I often quote this at brain club but we have one of our community members who we said, access needs I don't know what my access needs are, I just know that they're not being met. I think, when we look back, even if we don't have the language or the lens of access needs when you think back to a time where something worked. Often that is reflecting that you had access needs that were being met, you didn't know at the time that's what this was but now that Monique is like giving this example of like well that I knew exactly what to expect and the manual was down there and I had these very like, you know, these brief interactions. Wow. Well, like, anyway, now that all makes sense. And I think when people are in situations that really don't work. That can be a clue of on that access needs. Yeah, I just wanted to talk a bit about how it's been really hard for me like personally and I feel like it's related to my neurodivergence to kind of understand the value of money and to measure it appropriately doesn't matter how good I am at like math I just like don't manage it well. And the thing is like there's not enough. That's the problem right. But I, I grew up talking about like the, the narratives that we grow up with. I think I grew up with what is kind of doesn't make sense why it's a Christian narrative but Christian narrative of like if, if you're poor. It's because you have like a lesson to learn about specifically managing money and you know earning money and being responsible. And so, but it's really hard for me still at 31 to like confront that narrative within myself doesn't matter how much I boo capitalism and like my idea. I do they still have that that voice telling me that like, if I, if I'm having to make choices between, you know, meds or food or appointments, then it's because I'm doing something wrong. And that's, you know, what the most insidious and difficult. The first step we have to take I think in shifting the narrative around work to something more healthy. This is confronting that that self blame and realizing that we're, we're being forced to make these decisions in a really unjust way and it's not our faults if we make the wrong decision or, you know, are stressed out by the fact that we that we have to choose. Thank you so much for naming that and sharing that you, you are not alone. And, and the way that you were able to articulate that I think has has likely given so much to so many people here today. You know, I think what the idea that systems these like these oppressive power systems that tell you like that that that thwart you and hurt you and teach you that it's your fault. That's really messed up. And before I call on ginger, the other thing that's coming up for me and a bunch of us on our team here just read on Dr. Devin crisis new book on learning shame it's going to be our book chat for March. I'm going to read this one sentence. Systemic shame is the socially engineered self loathing that says we are solely to blame for our circumstances. It's just that poverty is remedied by the hard working people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps that marginalized people are personally responsible for solving the problem of their own oppression. And it's like the whole book is like that. Like, it's so much what you just said, ginger. Can you hear me. Okay, so thank you so much for doing this it's been a really rich and provocative and exciting conversation and thanks for everything everybody's Chris and others and money compared. So, what I'm curious about and it could probably be a whole separate zoom brain club is in jobs that come with insurance, because I have other conditions that require that I have a lot of really expensive medical treatments. And I find that a lot of the jobs in large organizations that would have good insurance. Excuse me, really feel like the square peg in the round hole. A lot of the time so I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm curious about how folks here or from ADB has addressed that. It's really common and I think one of the it was a it was a it was a very minor point that Connie Beale said in her interview, when she spoke about the benefits cliff, the idea of like even even when you work in a, you know, you get this job and it like earns slightly more money, and you're like oh yeah now I can afford the thing, but now that just disqualified me now I'm getting kicked off Medicaid which is one of the you know it's the one of the best insurance is you can get. And so it's, it's, it's really messed up. And so I think that, and we're pretty much everyone who was interviewed for this, this spring club had so much more wisdom than we were able to fit and so we're already working on like the, I think, I think almost everyone on tonight's panel is on marches panel, because it's like the continuation of their interviews, and this topic comes up in in the March discussion around like what would it look like to center what people really need to get out of work. Because I think, I think that, and maybe it really, I mean, it really the idea that someone would have to be in an, in an environment that hurts their health in order to access health care. Because that person. So I get it. And it's, it's, it's not sustainable. Nicole, go for it. Sorry, I couldn't. I zoom at some point moved that raise hand and I can never remember where it is. But at least I can raise my hand and then something automatically flashes up so things. So this has been a really interesting and rich discussion I really appreciate everybody's contributions to it. I've been thinking about this from the perspective of like the alternative of kind of working for yourself right like if I can't fit into the round hole, then there is an alternative where I become an entrepreneur or a solopreneur and I kind of lead my own thing but that comes with a slew of other things right because it goes from being in an overly structured and rigid environment to being in an overly unstructured environment, which I don't know, I don't really understand what my access needs are but I know they're not fully being met by me in my home. So I'm just curious like I know we're we don't have much time left but I'd be curious to hear more about that in March if I don't know if that's on the agenda. Totally so you know because I think one of the you have to couple that topic with the idea of unlearning independence like the myth of independence like in a in a culture of interdependence the idea that it is completely normal and favorable to be connected to and rely on other people. I think that's how the entrepreneur has a shot at figuring out how to meet their access needs because like it's completely it's just it's so much this summer summer said yes you want to do you want to. Can you speak to that at all summer. I'm sorry I was eating. I was writing at the same time that it is a collaborative process and if you try to do it alone. Very successful. I've owned my business with my husband for 10 almost 11 years and we had a slew of people come through our lives whether it was family or outsiders that really gave us a lot of wisdom. And it was really helpful for us to have that support and I don't think back then we realized what was happening but now in hindsight and I'm looking at the whole picture. Because I used to think that I was really introverted and I was afraid of people because I would have so much anxiety about what they thought about me and what I was going to say. And now I'm really past most of that and I think a lot of us have something inside us that we don't realize but if you can get around people that can inspire you that can help lift you up. I think being an entrepreneur is feasible but you have to plan it you have to pace it. And it's a lot of work and determination and it's like you have to figure it out do I put all this in an employer that doesn't give me everything I want. Or do I put all this energy and something that maybe I could get someone else to join me or I can get investors or I can get family or you know there's all kinds of different ideas. But you have to look at all the different avenues and I'm someone that just tries everything and then if I can't get there I'm like okay. This is a sign I should just give up but I will try to exhaust everything I can possibly think of. And if you have that determination, you know, and you ask the questions I think that you might find you can do this. Thank you Summer and I think the other the other piece and I definitely want to make sure I read Taylor's comment I think that's really powerful. I'll keep my comment short so I can go to your comment. But I think that when when someone's in the in the trenches in the struggle, it is so difficult to even begin to do the like setting up of what summer just described. So it's like, it's, it's hard to like you're so you're in this cycle. We heard a lot about cycles during our panelist interviews like you're in this cycle and it becomes familiar and so you stay there, because there's not the spaciousness. And so it's like, it's like, how do how do I create, how do I create space bandwidth to be able to plan out those next steps and what could that look like. And so Taylor says, I think, I think a problem that can also come with the default of quote just be your own boss is that nothing gets fixed. Why fix the system for those who want to work for someone else, how do you balance it. Yeah, and I think that's, that's a really good setup for our, our March brain club theme of systems change from the bottom up. To the village of people coming together to really not just make things better for themselves, but also build like, I mean, like a parallel play kind of universe where people can be connected and figure out how employment can come out of that. So people don't need to be in conditions that are hurting them and are destroying their health. It's hard work. And, and I think we can do it in community. Thank you all. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for being part of our community. And we'll look forward to seeing you next week for our book chat on the book together by Dr. Murphy, the former surgeon general US surgeon general about the power and the impact of social connection on health. We'll look forward to seeing you then. Bye.