Mafe Maria: Personal stories by autism parent mentor, Maria Stultz

Meaninglessness

So, after two very great (and unusual) experiences joining Kiki’s activities with full openness and enthusiasm… And perhaps as a result of the atonement experience I had yesterday… And in response to my prayer to open again the channel with Source because I felt so uninspired all last week… The guidance I’m receiving today is very enlightening.

What I’m seeing is the way how lately, sometimes, I’ve closed the channel with Kiki. It manifested in my longing for solitude, in my annoyance when he pursued conversations with me while I was doing dishes or drying my hair, and I told myself that I’d rather have my thoughts than engage in his topic. Why?… Perhaps because it was “meaningless” to me — how interesting that meaninglessness is appearing right now after doing so many exercises from “A Course in Miracles”.

So, because I thought I had tried plenty and failed, I decided that there were some things Joaquin is motivated by and I’m just not. This issue is something I explored with William during our Son-Rise Intensive week and couldn’t really resolve, so the pattern has continued at home. It may be the reason why despite the good experiences I have every day playing in the Romper Room with Joaquin, and despite my commitment to do it, there’s still a pattern of procrastination to get myself in and close the door. Because I keep hanging on to not liking these topics, motivations, activities, and I feel that I’ll have to respond enthusiastically to them in the room. I allow myself to be blah about them out of the room (“I’m not ready to play yet”) but the fact remains: I’m not interested in certain stuff.

What I’m realizing today is that “not liking” was a choice. I knew this in theory before, but I still felt unable to change my mind. A question that may have helped cast light here would’ve been Do I want to enjoy Joaquin’s traffic lights like he does?… I think the honest answer would’ve been no. I see now that this is what I was doing. I didn’t want to like these things because they were so foreign and meaningless to me; I dreaded them. That’s perhaps why the Romper Room was anticipated as work; work I was not motivated to do.

So today I’ve thought that this protection I’ve casted on my alone time… my closed time… my assigned time to be alone with my “very meaningful and important” thoughts… can relax. Bentinho Massaro recently suggested to stop thinking. So allowing Kiki to interrupt my “meaningful” thoughts with his “meaningless” chatter may be actually a very good thing for me. This whole concept of meaning from A course in Miracles is so helpful right now… Allowing myself to question meaning and perhaps not even needing to attribute it, not judging (Joaquin as meaningless; me as meaningful)… is very freeing. It allows me to open the channel with Kiki, to let him in and let myself go fully to him, to join him.

In a very organic way, today I’ve allowed myself to not need to understand to enjoy Kiki’s random comments in order to join and enjoy his conversation at any time — no matter what I’m doing. It has felt GREAT. I am reconnecting with the true spirit of joining and how it feels (in me) when I allow myself to open up and experience through somebody else’s eyes. That’s how I connect with God. That’s how I don’t remain separate in my shell. That’s how I give myself joy.

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