✨ Session 22: The Power of Self-Definition

🌿 Transformative Education for Neurodivergent Liberation

This image isn’t who I want to be—it’s who I’ve always been, beneath the noise. Fierce. Loyal. Compassionate. Wildmind. Before the world told me who I should be, I already knew. I was born with this knowing—carrying fire and softness in equal measure. I don’t wear this strength as armor; it’s my nature. This is me, remembered.

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
— Rumi

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📌 If you’re just joining us, I recommend reading [Session 1 – Why I’m Leading This Workshop (My Positionality)] for shared agreements and to understand how this space is held.

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🧭 A Note Before We Begin
This is the most personal one yet.

I got activated—deeply—after the last session. Someone questioned whether I truly understood the difference between interdependence and codependence. And while I know it wasn’t meant to harm, it landed hard.

So let me be clear.

I know codependence intimately. Not from theory. From survival.

I was in a 16-year trauma-bonded relationship. I entered it at 22, pregnant, two months into knowing him. I thought leaving would mean I failed. So I stayed. And stayed. And stayed—until I was completely stripped of myself.

My joy depended on his mood. My worth hinged on his needs being met. My sovereignty wasn’t just lost—it was ripped from my soul.

And I almost didn’t survive. Twice.

This is why I do this work.
Not because I have some abstract take on relational theory.
But because I clawed my way back from the edges of erasure.
Because I had to define myself from scratch.
Because I never want anyone to feel as alone—or as powerless—as I once did.

🤝 From Trauma-Bonded to Soul-Aligned

Leaving wasn’t liberation—it was devastation. The first year post-divorce nearly broke me. I won’t romanticize it. But that rupture created space for something new.

I walked into my first AA meeting carrying shame I didn’t think I deserved. I hadn’t grown up in the ways I thought "should" lead to addiction. But I was there. Broken. Lost. Unsure.

And then I met my first mentor. An 80-year-old badass feminist who showed me what true care looked like. Who modeled boundaries without blame. Who met me where I was, and walked with me forward.

That’s when I began to ask the real question—not “How do I stop drinking?” but “Why did I start?”

And that question changed everything.

📚 The Path of Self-Definition

I didn’t stop at healing—I studied. I got a degree in the psychology of addiction and counseling credentials. I earned credentials in trauma-informed care, peer support, recovery mentorship. I read every book I could find.

But do you know which book still stands out?

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie.

Yes, I have my critiques. But she saw it. She named the trap:
The belief that love means abandoning yourself.
The lie that your worth is measured by your usefulness.
The slow death that happens when you’re never allowed to need, feel, or say no.

That book helped me begin to name myself.
Not by someone else's definition—but my own.

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📚 She Opened a Portal

Melody Beattie didn’t just name my pain—
She opened a portal.

A portal into self-discovery. Into the question that has shaped the rest of my life:

Who am I, really, when I’m no longer defined by someone else’s needs?

That portal led me to the work I do now.

Self-discovery is not a buzzword—it’s a vast, rich, interdisciplinary field. It’s where psychology meets poetry, where science meets soul. I’ve wandered through it all:

• Sylvia Plath gave language to the darkness, unspoken and raw.

• bell hooks taught me that love is a political act—a practice of freedom and fierce care.

• adrienne maree brown showed me that emergent strategy starts within.

• Audre Lorde made it clear: caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.

• Toni Morrison gave voice to ancestral memory, power, and reclamation.

• Sarah Schulman revealed how conflict and accountability are necessary acts of love.

• Maya Angelou reminded me of the strength in rising.

• Clarissa Pinkola Estés helped me find the wild woman within.

• Esther Perel offered insights on intimacy, rupture, and repair.

  Of course, there were others, too:

• Stanislav Grof, who mapped the psyche’s deep waters.

• Ken Wilber, who challenged me to think integrally.

• Rumi, who reminded me I’m not separate from the divine.

• Robert Sapolsky, who anchored me in biology, complexity, and behavior.

But it’s the women who taught me how to feel.
How to love.
How to resist.
How to return to myself again and again—without shame.

Each voice a different doorway.
Each text a reflection of the collective consciousness.
Each insight a thread in the larger question:

What does it mean to be human?

And that—
That is what this workshop is about.

Not just recovery.
Not just neurodivergence.
Not just education, or justice, or disability.

But humanity.
In all its tangled, emergent, resilient beauty.

🪞 Why Naming Matters

In a world that constantly tries to name us—diagnose us, categorize us, minimize us—claiming the right to define ourselves is revolutionary.

And for those of us who are neurodivergent, multiply marginalized, or survivors of systems that erased us, self-definition isn’t just a right. It’s a reclamation.

It’s how we re-enter our own story. On our terms.

Too often, identity is treated as a fixed destination. A label you arrive at. But I see it differently.

To me, identity is a process. A praxis.
It’s not about certainty—it’s about resonance.
Not about boxes—but about becoming.

💬 I am not just Autistic, ADHD, gifted, traumatized, or queer.
I am the one who got to say so.
And that’s what makes it powerful.

🔍 What It Took to Get Here

There was a time I didn’t know I had a self to define.

A time when I thought my role was to serve, to adapt, to please.
A time when my worth was measured in how little I needed, how much I gave, how well I performed.

And yes—I almost lost myself in that.

But I found the breadcrumbs.

In the spiral of recovery.
In the fire of rage.
In the gentle presence of mentors.
In books that made me cry with recognition.

Each step of self-definition came not from certainty, but from curiosity.

From asking, over and over:
What is true for me?
Who am I, really, underneath the conditioning?
And who do I choose to become?

🧠 Self-Definition vs. Diagnosis

Let’s be clear: there is a difference between being named and naming yourself.

Diagnosis can be helpful. It can open doors, build understanding, offer language.

But diagnosis is not identity. It is a medical tool—not a soul map.

Self-definition goes deeper. It holds complexity. It honors change. It allows contradiction.

It’s the difference between someone handing you a mirror—and you building one yourself, piece by piece, until you can see your whole reflection.

🧭 The Compass of the Self

When we define ourselves:

• We set our own boundaries.

• We determine what care looks like for us.

• We choose what stories we belong to—and which we refuse to carry.

And from that place of self-honoring, we begin to relate to others not from fragmentation or performance—but from wholeness.

That’s when interdependence becomes possible.

Because only when we know who we are, can we show up fully in relationship.

💭 Reflection Invitation: Who Gets to Name You?

Let’s pause here together.

📓 Who has tried to define you—without your consent?
🌱 When have you claimed an identity that felt like truth?
💬 What words, roles, or names feel like home—and which ones never did?

You are not a diagnosis.
You are not a demographic.
You are not a deficit.

You are the author of your own becoming.

And that—
That is power.

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🧱 Before Boundaries, There Were Walls

Before I learned what a boundary really was, I built walls.

I called them boundaries, but they were mostly barricades—erected in pain, not power.
Reactive. Rigid. Necessary at the time, but not sustainable.

I had been so violated, so unheard, so over-explained and under-protected, that the only thing I knew how to do was shut people out or blow everything up.

I thought boundaries had to be loud.
I thought they had to come with ultimatums, explanations, defenses.
I thought I had to justify why I deserved to feel safe.

But real boundaries don’t sound like panic.
They sound like peace.

They don’t demand.
They declare.

They don’t punish.
They protect.

🪞 Boundaries Are an Act of Self-Definition

Boundaries are not about controlling others.
They’re about knowing yourself well enough to say:
“This is what I need to stay rooted in who I am.”

And let me be clear: boundaries are not static.
They’re living. Breathing. A relational practice.
They evolve as we do.

Some of the boundaries I hold now came through deep reflection.
Others came through heartbreak.
Some came from the softest parts of me finally saying, “No more.”

And almost all of them came from getting it wrong—before I could get it right.

🤲 From Walls to Invitations

When I started healing, my boundaries became less about avoidance—and more about alignment.

They stopped being shields, and started being doors:

• “This is how I can connect with you.”

• “This is the kind of care I need.”

• “Here’s how I stay in my truth—without losing you or myself.”

Because that’s what self-definition really is.
Not just naming who you are—but protecting who you are.
Not just having a voice—but learning how to use it without silencing or shouting.

🛠️ Boundaries Are a Practice

And I’m still learning.

Sometimes I still go quiet when I should speak.
Sometimes I still over-share when I should pause.
Sometimes I still let things slide that later sting.

But now I return to myself more quickly.
I forgive myself more gently.
I choose myself more often.

And every time I do, I remember:

Boundaries are not the end of connection.
They are the beginning of it.

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🌍 Self-Definition Is a Cultural Rebellion

The moment we name ourselves—on our own terms—we begin to undo centuries of imposed meaning.

Systems of control have always relied on definition as a tool of domination.
The DSM. The census. The gender binary. The diagnostic codes.
We’ve been measured, categorized, medicalized, racialized, and pathologized—not to understand us, but to manage us.

To define yourself in this context is not just personal—it’s political.

It’s an act of reclamation.

Because when culture tells you who you’re supposed to be,
when systems decide who’s “worthy,” “functional,” “normal,” or “real,”
choosing your own language becomes a form of protest.

✊🏽 Self-Definition as Resistance

I don’t identify as disabled because someone told me to.
I identify that way because I am—and because that word, for me, holds power.
It connects me to a lineage of resistance, of truth-telling, of survival.

But I also didn’t always claim it.
Like many people, I internalized shame, stereotypes, and scripts.
I thought if I could just stay palatable enough, I wouldn’t have to fight so hard to be understood.

That was a lie.
Respectability does not protect us.
It just delays the reckoning.

So now I choose words that feel like home.
Not labels that reduce—but language that expands.
I don’t need permission to say: I am neurodivergent. I am disabled by unjust systems. I am whole.

🧠 Language Is Liberation

Self-definition is not about branding.
It’s not about curating an identity for consumption.
It’s about liberation.

It’s about the right to change.
To be more than one thing.
To make sense in your own language—even if no one else understands at first.

It’s about saying:

• I am not your assumption.

• I am not your checkbox.

• I am not your inspiration story or your tragedy trope.

I am me. And I decide what that means.

🚪 The Tensions Within: When Self-Definition Meets Gatekeeping

Let’s be real: the power to define ourselves doesn’t always guarantee acceptance—especially in our own communities.

We say “come as you are,”
but sometimes what we mean is “come as we understand.”
And when someone doesn’t fit our framework—when their expression of neurodivergence, disability, queerness, identity, or recovery doesn’t look how we expect—it can trigger discomfort, suspicion, or even exclusion.

🛑 Who Gets to Belong?

Too often, self-definition is met with:

• “You’re not really autistic.”

• “You’re not disabled enough.”

• “You’re faking it.”

• “You’re too functional.”

• “You’re just looking for attention.”

This isn’t liberation. It’s lateral violence.
It’s the internalized oppression of a culture that taught us to doubt each other—and ourselves.

In trying to protect our spaces, we sometimes replicate the very systems we’re trying to dismantle.

We build fences instead of bridges.
We demand credentials instead of listening.
We center our pain so much that we miss someone else’s truth.

💥 There’s No One Way to Be Real

Here’s the truth: self-definition is messy.
It evolves. It contradicts. It resists neat categories.
And that’s exactly why it’s sacred.

I don’t need everyone to define themselves the way I do.
But I do need us to stop punishing each other for being on different parts of the journey.

Because there is no one way to be autistic, disabled, in recovery, queer, or human.
There is no diagnostic gold star. No hierarchy of validity. No purity test for pain.

There is only this: Are we showing up as who we are, with integrity and care?

🌉 From Policing to Possibility

What if we moved from identity policing to identity witnessing?

What if we practiced curiosity instead of critique?

What if we made space for each other to change, to expand, to contradict ourselves?

Self-definition is not just about me—it’s about us.
The kind of culture we’re creating.
The kind of world we’re building.
And the kind of relationships we’re willing to hold when things get uncomfortable.

Because that’s where the real growth is.
That’s where transformation lives.

🪞 The Audacity to Name Ourselves

Someone on social media recently called me “a white woman who thinks she’s a prophet.”
I just giggled. Not because it didn’t sting a little—but because it didn’t stick.

That kind of commentary used to unravel me. The assumptions. The projections. The relentless judgments from people who don’t even know me.

But now? I know who I am. And when you know who you are, that kind of noise doesn’t matter.

What matters is the people I’m in relationship with.
The ones who see me.
Who let me name myself.
Who don’t need to flatten me to feel safe in their own skin.

When someone tries to define you without consent, they’re often running from their own reflection.
Because people who truly know themselves don’t feel the need to rename others.
They know how sacred self-definition is—and how dangerous it is to take it away.

So yes, I am my own prophet. I hope you become yours.
And if that bothers someone? That’s not mine to hold.

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🤝 Learning Consent Beyond the Basics

I didn’t come to consent through a workshop or a book.
I came to it through a Facebook group.

Years ago, I found myself curious about polyamory—not because I wanted to practice it, but because I was intrigued by how people navigated complexity in relationships. So I joined a group that welcomed observers, and I did just that: I observed.

That’s where I discovered relationship anarchy—a philosophy that dismantles hierarchy in relationships and centers mutuality, autonomy, and consent in every interaction. It was there, in that unexpected digital space, that the concept of consent finally landed for me.

Not just consent as “yes or no.”
Not just consent in the context of sex or intimacy.
But consent as a way of being in community.

It challenged everything I thought I knew.
It showed me how much I’d conformed out of politeness, obligation, fear.
And it invited me into a new paradigm: where every relationship is a co-created agreement—not an assumption, not a transaction, not a performance.

This changed my life.

Because once I understood that every human interaction holds the potential for consensual design, I started asking new questions:

• Who gets to name the terms of our connection?

• What does mutual care actually require?

• Where am I overriding myself in the name of being “good” or “easy to work with”?

• How can we build community that centers choice, not coercion?

• What agreements do we assume in this space that need to be made explicit?

• How often do we check in about capacity before making asks?

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🔮 This Is How the Future Begins

We are not just naming ourselves—we are reclaiming the right to be the authors of our own becoming.

Self-definition is not an indulgence.
It’s a counterspell to every system that told us who we were should hurt.
It’s a boundary in motion.
It’s an act of consent.
It’s interdependence with integrity.

Because when we know who we are, we stop letting the world define us by what it fears, misunderstands, or wants to control.

And when we let others define themselves—without gatekeeping, without coercion, without assumptions—we build the kind of trust that can hold complexity, conflict, and difference.

That’s how liberation becomes real:
Not when we agree on everything, but when we refuse to dominate each other in the name of being right.

This isn’t easy work.
It asks us to unlearn the lie that safety comes from sameness.
It asks us to choose consent over comfort.
It asks us to be willing to let others grow beyond our understanding of them.

But this is how the future begins:

✨ In the space between self-respect and shared respect.
✨ In the tension between autonomy and accountability.
✨ In the daily, imperfect practice of showing up without shrinking or steamrolling.

Self-definition isn’t the end of the story.
It’s the foundation for the story we write together.

We don’t need permission.
We need each other.

And that is enough.

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💌 A Gentle Invitation

Before you go, consider this:

📓 What would it feel like to write your own declaration of self-definition?
Not for performance. Not for approval.
But for you.

You don’t have to share it.
You don’t have to polish it.
Just try this:

“I am…”
“I choose…”
“I release…”
“I belong to…”
“I believe…”

Let it be messy. Let it be yours.

Because naming yourself isn’t about getting it right—it’s about finally hearing your own voice, unfiltered, uncensored, and true.

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🔮 What’s Next:

💫 New Sessions Every Monday & Wednesday
This 12-week journey unfolds twice a week—each session building on the last.

You can view the full session lineup here, and here’s what’s coming next:

✨ Session 23 – You’re Not Broken: A Love Letter to the Wild Mind
We’ll shift from pathology to possibility—exploring the radical reframe that your complexity, your intensity, your divergence are not flaws to fix, but signals of something profoundly alive. This is a celebration of nonlinear minds, creative chaos, and the brilliance that emerges when we stop trying to “function” and start learning to flourish.

💬 Share Your Reflections
This space thrives when we co-create it. Your insights, stories, and resonances deepen the collective learning. Share in the comments—or send a private message if that feels safer.

💖 Support the Work
This series is freely offered—because healing and justice should never be paywalled.

If you’re able to support financially, a paid subscription sustains this work and expands the reach of The Compassion Collective—a community rooted in equity, care, and transformation.

Every share. Every voice. Every ripple. It matters.

With love and gratitude,
🌿 Shamani of The Compassion Collective