This one mindset shift changed my child’s friendships and how you can do it too.
From the beginning of our wild and crazy autism journey, I unknowingly trained my mind to believe we (my autistic family) were “not good enough”, and that we needed fixing in some way. Reading my child’s ASD assessment that they were “lacking” socially, and would need therapy to “develop” their ability to be a part of a group and make friends made me feel pretty crappy. The therapists themselves were well-meaning(bless their hearts!), but the underlying energy was that their natural crazy, wild, loud, spontaneous self was something to be changed if they were to be acceptable. Ouch, that was a heavy belief to lug around!
And so, I adopted those beliefs as my own, believing that they would struggle to make friends and if they were excluded it was because they were autistic.
As they went through school my beliefs came true. They were often left out, not invited to parties, were told they were “too much” in class and over the years I watched them retreat into themselves as they also began to believe they were “unacceptable”. The prophecy was fulfilled!
Interestingly (and not coincidentally in my opinion), my autism journey also led me through huge personal growth and spiritual awakening. As I studied more about the brain and dove into the mysteries of my own beliefs and programming, I discovered the direct connection between my own beliefs and how they reflected my experience of the outside world including the world of my kids.
I remember thinking, if this is true then I am going to make sure I use my thoughts wisely and for the best for everyone. It was a light bulb moment!
I had learnt that consciously choosing different thoughts created new experiences in my world that matched my new thoughts and so every time I noticed myself spiralling into shitty thought trains like, “They’ve got no friends, they’ll never have good friends” I would hit the mental brakes and choose to reroute to more positive tracks. I would literally say to myself: “Woah Nova, not helpful, let’s rethink that thought to “Every day they have the opportunity to create stronger friendships.”
And I would ask myself, “Who would I be if I didn’t have that thought?” I would ponder what it would feel like, how free and confident I’d feel if friendships were no longer an issue. Just pondering on that question got my brain actively sparking away (at least I imagine it was sparking!) creating new neural pathways to create new experiences. Without me doing anything else, except actively thinking more aligned thoughts, my brain was literally rewiring so that I could experience my thoughts in the world around me.
I started to consciously look for evidence of how they were a good friend.
Such as how they were kind and caring, and used my own friendship examples to boost those thoughts. If I’d had a lovely chat with a friend, I would choose to think, “I’m an awesome friend so naturally my child will learn from me and make their own great friends.”
Sure enough, by practising new thoughts things began to shift. At first, they made one great friend which I used as concrete evidence for my brain. Then slowly but surely they gained more friends and soon were part of a large inclusive group of the most beautiful, kind-hearted souls.
Now for at least 2 years, they have had a solid group of great friends, who are all caring and kind. And I am left without a doubt that by taking responsibility for my own thoughts, I played my part.
My NLP training taught me that sometimes we learn inaccurate information and take it on as a belief, and this is definitely what I did. I believed that our autism was a setback and so my life reflected that. My training also taught me that life is reflected in the quality of your thoughts, so I made sure my thoughts were damn good ones.
And the biggest lesson I learnt was that my kids reflect on what’s going on within me and my thoughts.
My child was like a living breathing mirror reflecting my inner world, so I dubbed them my “soul selfie”.
Just as a photo selfie reflects your face, your child is the selfie for your soul, mirroring your soul’s messages, and showing you where to sprinkle more self-love.
My soul selfie showed me where I needed to step into my own power and give myself quality thoughts by noticing their power and gifts instead of focusing on flaws.
Now, because I love you so much,(yes you!) I have gathered together the main steps I took, and teach my clients, to create a positive shift in your child’s friendships.
Here’s what you can do:
Treat your child as your soul selfie, a canvas revealing where your soul craves more love.
The easiest way to shower your soul with love is by thinking kinder, more helpful thoughts—no PhD in rocket science required. To start, just dedicate 10 minutes a day to jotting down helpful positively framed thoughts. Simple as that.
To get you started, write down a question first, such as, “How is my child the most loving amazing friend?” and then write a list of 10 ways your child makes a good friend.
Then challenge yourself to think of 20 ways, then 30.
Next, spend a few minutes writing down the hard evidence you have that makes your child friend-worthy. This could be as basic as you noticed another kid smile at your kid on the way out of school. It could be a teachers passing comment that your kid is a sweetheart. No matter how small, focus on the evidence of what you DO want, so you can create it.
Turbocharge your results by spending 15 minutes imagining life without the nagging thought of “my child has no friends.”
For example: Who am I if I don’t have the thoughts that my child has no friends?
Write down how you will feel when you know your child is confident, free and happy with their friends. How confident, free and happy will you feel when your child’s friendships are a non-issue? How wonderful will it feel? What will you do, think and say? Will you love having all the friends over to your house? Will you love sending them off to play?
Remember building the muscle to think helpful thoughts is like building any other muscle, you can’t expect great biceps if you only lift a dumbbell once. It takes consistency, and training your brain is no different.
Also, remember your brain is naturally wired to find the negative in the situation so be kind to yourself when you find yourself spiralling.
A super fun and kind way to do this if you notice your thinking gets away from you is to stop, and express gratitude for three things about your child, to shift you into a higher frequency.
Oh and by the way, this isn’t a woo-woo exercise, it’s a neuron-firing, brain-reprogramming technique that actually gets your brain working to experience what you are focussing on, which is all those amazing characteristics about your child.
One of the biggest mindset shifts for me was when I realised that my soul selfie (a.k.a my precious child) isn’t here to make my life hard, they’re just a funky reflection of my inner world, pushing me to love myself more.
Ready to decode your soul selfie? Want to unravel the mysteries of your child’s behaviour and grab a practical coaching-based action plan to help you make sense of it all and move forward?
Introducing “Decode Your Soul Selfie” sessions empowering you to understand your child.
You get to decode the messages from your soul that your child is mirroring to you.
You’ll also receive a practical action plan with steps to implement straight away.
Book here: https://novarose.as.me/soulselfie
If you want more insights beyond therapy then check out novarose.co