Zoe: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Autism and Theology Podcast. Brought to you by the Center for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology Podcast. I'm Zoe, and I'm so happy that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology to relevant resources and promote ways that help faith and non-faith communities enable autistic people to flourish.

This podcast is run from the university. Aberdeen Center for Auman Theology, which we've shortened to CAT. If you would like to access the transcript for this episode, it can be found via the link in the show notes. Today's episode we have with us Rachel Terlop, who's an expert in education and has also studied theology.

We've invited Rachel onto the podcast to chat about the creative arts, mindfulness 

Rachel, it's fantastic to have you with us today. Do you wanna start by just telling our listeners a bit about you, because there's so much to learn. You're such an interesting person with so many different expertise and yeah.

If you wanna share about yourself. 

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I am Rachel Turlop. I am a white able-bodied female. My pronouns are, she her or they. I have diagnosed A DHD and I am so tickled to be here. Um, okay, so a little bit about me. I'm a third generation educator, so my grandma, my mom, my sister are all teachers.

I married into a family that has teachers, um. But I taught in early childhood settings for like the first 10 years of my career. Taught in preschool in Wisconsin. I taught year three in Nairobi, Kenya, Kenton, college Preparatory school. I've taught in Washington DC at a few different schools, taught in Virginia.

Um. Both in elementary school, but also at a middle and high school, specifically designed for neurodivergent youth. And now I'm currently serving as a professor of teacher education at Simpson College, and I'm currently teaching classes around early childhood education and special education. So that's a little bit about me and my background.

Zoe: Yes. So many different things Rachel. It's really amazing to hear all that. And you've also, I don't think you mentioned there, you've also studied theology quite a bit. 

Rachel: Yeah, I have. Um, [00:03:00] so I earned my bachelor's in divinity, master's in Divinity and a PhD in transpersonal counseling. And that was something that, it wasn't a part of the original five year plan.

What happened was COVID basically, we got sent home on March 13th and my mom called me and like I mentioned, she was a, a teacher. She was a health educator for 30 years. Um, but she called and she was like, you need to make a lesson plan for yourself, otherwise you're. You're gonna have a real hard time during this, and I appreciate her for knowing me like that because teaching first grade through COVID, at least at my school in Virginia, we were only teaching for hour blocks at a time because the kiddos are six years old.

And so what am I doing with the other hours of my day at home? So I found this wonderful. University. It's called the University of Metaphysical Sciences. It is accredited through the University of Minnesota and it has a do it at your own pace, a bachelor's, a master's, and a PhD program. And so I was able to work my way through it in my own time during COVID and I had that time and space to be.

Reflective. I had time to think. Yes. There was so much time and at times it was overwhelming, but I learned about so many different elements of theology and religion and the practice of spirituality that I hadn't been exposed to growing up. I grew up in a Presbyterian household, got confirmed and unfortunately my pastor, when we were.

The day of confirmation, I remember him saying something negative about like the L-G-B-T-Q community, and I remember being like, oh no, if this is what confirmation means, I am not interested in being a part of this structure. So I mean, from probably age 15 to 29 was really aimless in terms of my spiritual focus, but.

This program helped me see and explore and come to find art as a spiritual practice, which is something I had never thought of before. So, yeah. 

Zoe: Yeah, it's so fascinating, Rachel, and just, yeah, really cool that you did all that alongside teaching and I love the idea of making a lesson plan for yourself. I think that's a really helpful way sometimes when we don't know what to do, sometimes it's good just to do these structural things.

Um, so yeah, like with all your expertise and everything that you're doing. I wonder if you can speak about what can creative and alternative practices bring to the lives of neurodivergent people? Obviously you've worked a lot with [00:06:00] neurodivergent students. Um, yeah, it'd be great if you could share a bit about that.

Rachel: Oh, I think the biggest thing that comes to my mind. What that question is, autonomy. Because if we have these creative spaces, or if we as teachers, I'm speaking as teacher, if we facilitate a space, we can introduce materials, we can introduce textures, we can introduce colors, we can introduce ideas. But if we leave the materials out and let people put together the pieces in their own way or form their own connections, that's when the really cool stuff happens.

Um. And like my partner and I have started thinking about that also in terms of like dinner too. Like here are the ingredients for dinner, what can we make and do? So I think creativity and the arch and neurodivergency all goes together because we're all using the same tools. It's just the pathways we take to put the pieces together.

That's that's the autonomy of it. 

Zoe: Yeah. That's so interesting because like so often when we think about like using creative arts or using different like, um, I said like textures, materials to um, do things, whether that's education or in faith, it can be so easy to come with the idea. Like, I'm just thinking your typical Sunday school activities of like, yeah, makeup boat, out of pipe cleaners.

I dunno, that is what comes to mind. But like those kind of activities are so prescriptive and I really love what you say about like, actually like. Giving children and adults, I guess autonomy to find what works best for them. Like see what they're drawn to. It's, yeah, really interesting. 

Rachel: Yeah, and I don't think, I, I don't think I could have been able to explain that or say that six years ago when I started my doctoral program, I am working to defend my dissertation by the end of next month.

So that's extending. But I have a supervisor, I have a, oh my gosh, my dissertation team is incredible. Um. They have fully embraced my neurodivergence and empowered me to like use that as part of my researcher positionality. And so something I'm really excited about is that I've been able to embed art space research into my dissertation.

And so something that they have encouraged me to do is take the data that I've been collecting and. Express myself creatively. So, for example, my research study is currently around how pre-service teachers are using technology to create universally designed for learning lessons. Lessons that have multiple means of engagement, lessons that have multiple means of representation for students, and multiple means of action and expression.

And so. [00:09:00] When I'm observing my students and looking at their lesson plans and collecting their data, I have like the good old fashioned checklist, right? A white piece of paper. Here's my grid on it. I'm taking my notes on this framework that exists, and so I did my research study like that, and there was no.

Life in it, like there was no creativity. And one of my favorite researchers, uh, Ron Richard, he talks about the power of making thinking visible. And one of the questions he poses is, how can you make this beautiful? How could we take data and make it beautiful? And so like that's been in the back of my head.

I got to work with him in 2018 at a conference. But what I did was I ended up taking the Universal Design for Learning framework and I painted it into. Floral motif. So instead of like a visual frequency tracker where it's just tally marks or it's just a column on a spreadsheet, the Universal Design for Learning framework has nine components.

And so I put nine flower stems in a vase, and then every time my student did one of those universal design for learning actions, I added a pedal and then I changed colors for every observation I did. So these. Petals end up looking like lush and thick and full like peonies, but it's data like that's my dissertation data.

And so. I have an incredible dissertation team who has supported me in articulating myself clearly at like participating in the academic world and are like, yeah, you are neurodivergent and this is how you made sense of it. Great. Let's make space for it. So I am, I'm thankful to have a team of people who are helping me navigate academia in this way to em, embrace it, and like I hope to be that teacher for my students too.

Zoe: Yeah. That's so interesting. That's so fantastic. You have such a good dissertation team who have supported you in that and yeah, the flowers sound so cool. Um, I think

yeah, so fascinating in terms of something we speak a lot about on the Autism and Theology Podcast is like, it's not about giving churches like a list of things that they can do to be more inclusive and. Like we're not under chatting about church just yet. I think what you're saying is it speaks into that idea of like being inclusive and supportive of neurodivergent thinking isn't about saying like, oh, do this, do this, do this.

It's creating those spaces and you've obviously experienced that and create those spaces for other people and, um, yeah. Fascinating. Really cool. Yeah. Thank you. And one kind of like major thing that you've spoken about a lot in your writing. Um, so for our listeners, Rachel wrote a chapter for Krysia, our co-host's book, um, which I'll link in the show notes.

And in that chapter you've written about a thing called the Turlop Technique, [00:12:00] which you showed me this when we spoke before and it's really cool, um, and I wanna hear about it. But if you're listening. I really recommend going to the show notes and finding the video in the show notes to like see a visual explanation of this before Rachel speaks about it.

Um, because it's definitely something you need to see. So have a look in the show notes. Click that link. Um, but yeah, Rachel, can you talk about the Turlop technique? 

Rachel: Absolutely. Um, so I named it after myself because I didn't know what else to name it and I feel so uncomfortable with having it named after myself.

But here we are. Um. Two seconds of background and then I'll tell you what this is. When I started my doctoral program, I did not know what I was going into. Like I knew I had a gap in knowledge around special education and like that's where I wanted to fill the gap. So I knew higher education was the move, but I did not know.

What all a PhD in research was. So I'm in my first term and I'm telling my teacher like, this is what I wanna research. And I'm telling him about this study I did with gross motor movement and phonics with my first graders. And he was like, that's so interesting. And it's not in the literature, so pick a different topic basically.

So I've had that in my mind since 2019 of like there is something in gross motor movement and phonics. And I've just had that tucked away. So the Turlop technique came out of me reading the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and doing some exercises and journaling, daily journaling, and starting to notice some patterns in myself, like patterns in myself as an artist, patterns myself as a researcher, patterns in myself as a teacher, but.

I noticed that when I was painting, I was doing a lot of negative self-talk. And so I had to make the intentional choice of we're gonna stop that. And painting can be your practice to be messy, to give yourself permission to not let it look like something. I had an art teacher once who said, don't lust over the final result.

And so like that was kind of what I was trying to do was not be connected to what it should or could look like, just. The practice of painting. And so something that I found myself aligning with more and more over time is color theory and connecting colors to intentions. I'm very interested in the chakra system.

That's a whole other thing, but for example, you wanna pick. In the Turlop technique, like if we're actually gonna try this technique for painting, um, we're gonna start by choosing the color. For example, I'm gonna choose the color red because red symbolizes grounding and safety. And that's definitely what I feel like as we're starting this podcast.

So I'm starting with red, and then what I do is I go pick my paint and I don't know how y'all [00:15:00] get paint. Everyone has their own way. I love going to our local Home Depot store, and I love looking at the paint wall with all the paint chip samples, and I picked them based on their name because like, oh, that makes me think of this and that.

Anyway, so you get your color, you pick your paint sample. For the example that I shared with y'all that's in the show notes, I picked two kinds of red, I picked Morocco red, I picked Spice Potpourri. So those are the two names of the reds I picked. Here's where I bring in that, that phonics, that, that type of teacher in, um, I count the syllables next.

So Morocco red. Morocco red. Sometimes I put my hand under my chin and do chin drops so I can feel where that syllable is. But Morocco red has four syllables, spice Potpourri. I feel four syllables. Spiced is one of those hard ones 'cause it has the ED at the end, but I feel it as four syllables. Spice popery.

Okay, now that I've got my intention, my paint, I've got the syllables in my mind. It's time to start adding some movement, saying it aloud. Maybe sing it in your head. But movement with a paintbrush to feel what this could be. Morocco, red and I, as I say that, I'm like waving my hand around and imagining I have a paintbrush.

Morocco red. Morocco red. Like what type of syllable pattern and emphasis do I wanna do? Spiced. Like that type of silly thing. So I'm making the movements, I'm saying it out loud, and then I invite music in. Maybe it's music that's aligned to the intention. Like I said, I wanted to feel grounded and safe.

That's one type of music. Maybe. Maybe I just need to get my energy out. Like I need some big gross motor movements. I love good flail and so like maybe I'm doing something upbeat, like EDM music. My current favorite album right now is Brat by Charlie XCX. Um. But then I get the music on, and then I'm saying it over and over and over in my head.

Morocco red. Morocco red, but I invite the paint in. And so now my canvas is getting covered and. It's just big gross motor movements to the beat, repeating those syllables. And I found myself doing this time after time when I was painting and I was like, you've made a game for yourself. Like you are the one who self-imposed these rules.

No one else is telling you to do this. But that was how the Tur Turlop techniques started to develop and. Now it's kind of my go-to practice when I do the backgrounds of my paintings. So I'll do my big canvas and I'll do this technique to fill the background. What goes on top? I don't know. I, I don't really use the Terlop technique after the background, but I, once I realized what I was doing [00:18:00] and I connected it with.

Oh my gosh, Rachel, you're neurodivergent. It's, oh, that's stemming like, oh, that's echolelea. I'm repeating a same phrase over and over and I'll find myself doing it with made up phrases and words with silly things like it has become, it's become a practice. And so I wrote it down and I was then able to email that professor, you know, from the first semester of grad school and be like, Hey, now there is something in literature with gross motor movement and phonics.

And so I haven't done anything else with it except write that chapter, but talk to me in a year and we'll see where we are. I hope that answers or like gives you some context for the Turlop technique. 

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. Like I really encourage our listeners to go and look at it because when I had an initial call with Rachel, I asked her to tell me more about the technique and she got her canvas out, got the paint, and like did all this for me.

And I've told so many people about that because it was just so amazing to watch she do it. And I think like the way you explain it's good, but like, yeah, our listeners like, please go and look at that because it's so. You need to like see it to really get at it is, um, yeah, fascinating. 

Rachel: But it gives you that permission to like move.

It gives you that permission to not be attached to like, am I painting a duck or a cow? No, there's no anything. It's just paint and movement. And I think the thing that was really encouraging, I wrote this down and you know, I submitted it for this chapter to be considered. But then I was invited to our local, um, retirement community.

Um, and so I got to come in, bring Canvas with. All of these real sweet, just like elderly folks in our community. But the way I introduced it to them was we all got glow sticks out. So we practiced with the glow sticks beforehand and we used karaoke music. So there was no distraction of lyrics because like if you watch the video of me doing it, part of me is like singing the lyrics and then I switch into Morocco red, Morocco red, like, so we started with glow sticks to visualize it.

Then we found karaoke music just so we could find the beat and then. They did it along with me, so like I've gotten to try it with, um, a more elderly population. I've got to try it with my students. It's, it's, it's something, it's something I wrote down. I appreciate you asking about it. 

Zoe: Yeah. And obviously like you've developed that technique in the context of your own like creative expression and education.

But yeah, I'd really love to hear how, if at all, you feel that that technique could be a creative practice used in faith communities and maybe particularly thinking about neurodivergent people in faith communities. Um, and yeah, I just wonder what you would say about like scope for the Turlop technique as a form of spiritual practice.

Rachel: Yeah. Um. I've been thinking about that a lot [00:21:00] because when you and I first connected to like plan for this interview, my first reaction was, okay, my mind goes to Mala beads. Um, and that idea of Jo of meditation MAs have 108 beads and you touch each one and say your repetitive phrasing, whether it's Hari Krishna or whatnot.

And so there's that touching and that tactile and that repetitive, and it's a sound mantra, so there's sound involved with this, but they're. It could also be in your own timing too. So I was thinking about could we invite church-based music or whatever space you're worshiping in, like could you invite hymns into and practice with this?

Because choosing color and choosing intention that transcends all cultures like that is not something that's. It's gonna be a problem in the church, I would hope not paint. I mean, you have to be welcome to a mess if you're inviting this technique in. But spirituality can be very messy. So I, I don't again, see a problem with this analogy yet.

Um, in terms of like syllables and paint colors, if you were hoping to build this into a spiritual practice, like really make it intentional and make it the lesson of the day. Why couldn't you rename the color based on whoever you are studying or like the name of the town of the place that you are studying?

Like why couldn't we change it up like that? It doesn't have to be Vermilion Green from the Home Depot. It could be Joseph's Technicolor Dream Code. I don't know. We could count all the syllables in that, but as I was thinking about how could we make this multicultural, how could we make it appropriate for different spaces?

My immediate reaction is it's tactile. There's music involved. People worship with their whole bodies in so many settings, whether it's kneeling on a mat, bowing our heads, raising hands to the sky and worship, like gross motor movement names and honoring people, intentions and color. That all has a place in the church.

And so. What we really need is space and materials to try it. But couldn't this be a collaborative thing? It doesn't just have to be a neurodivergent population in a, in a church like this could be a, a canvas that the whole community contributes to. So that's kind of what I'm thinking about. Could the Turlop technique and theology go hand in hand?

Yeah. I'm also thinking about, I'm. I apologize, I'm switching topics. I am currently in a book study of the Bhagavan Gita with one of my dear teachers and yoga practitioners, uh, Heather Irene Smith, and she's leading us through this text, this cultural text that is not one I grew up with, but in our latest meeting we were talking about the three unas [00:24:00] or like the three different types of energies that we have.

So there's Una, which is balance and harmony, peace and clarity and light. There's like the Rajas Una, which has movement and activity and energy and passion. And then there's the Thomas, which is inactivity, apathy, dullness and dark. Like it's the energies that all of us go through in our, in our lives, in our days, at some point.

This practice could be used with any energy level. You do not have to be gross motor standing. Like as I've talked about this, I have talked about standing in like full-figured expression, and I know that's a bias because I am an able-bodied woman, but this is something that we could do seated. This is something that we could do in our hands.

This is something. This is something that I feel could be accessible and adapted, even though I've explained it in this whole gross motor movement type of way. I hope that answers your questions, Zoe. 

Zoe: No, it answers my question and it opens up so many other things. Um, yeah. Um, I've got like multiple things written down that I wanna ask you about now, but I just, I really like what you said.

Um, at one point you said about the kind of like, it doesn't need to be individual. Like it can be like a community thing, like a big canvas, and I just, yeah. That idea of having like multiple people in a community do that and then even like bring that into inter faith practices as well and like how do you kind of.

Engage spirituality across different faiths and like bring people together. It's such a like yeah, it's such a like, unifying idea, I guess. And I think something we speak about so often in autism and theology is that idea of like the body of Christ and like how do we bring neurodivergent people or anyone who is marginalized into the center of communities.

Mm-hmm. And I just, that kind of idea of like a big community canvas, I guess. Like that's such a like. Guess like an actual practical way of doing that? Like doing what we talk about when we speak about like bringing people together. Um, yeah. Really cool. 

Rachel: Okay. So you just said that it made me think of something else.

Um, my husband is so supportive of like all of the things that I'm interested in, right? So last year I had the privilege of being invited to. Something called Paint Madison County. The bridges in the county I live in, there's like a movie and a book about them. Anyway, I got to go paint the bridges, right?

But they stationed me at this winery and it was hot that day, so I ended up staying inside. The point of me telling you this is my husband suggested that I use the Winery's wine on my canvas so I could like incorporate them and it could be. It could be special. And from this moment and this winery, and it's not just about the bridge, it's also about like what's around.

And so as you said that, I'm like, why [00:27:00] aren't we getting out the different communion wine and trying this? Like can you, can you imagine how cool and like powerful that could be? I'm sure so many people would have so many questions, but like. If we're talking about body and blood, like what textures, like what materials could we bring in and still be appropriate?

Like, I don't know, you just push my thinking there. 

Zoe: Yeah, it's like bringing in, how do you bring in like the symbolic things we do in a church? Like how do you bring in like sacraments, I guess, into creativity as well? Yeah, and I think like two other really key things that I'm thinking about, this isn't necessarily a question, but just like two things that this raises in my mind when you talk about these things is that idea of like embodiment and.

The senses. And um, certainly in my own research on dyslexia and theology and, and a lot of other autism neurodiversity theology, there's this idea of like, embodiment and we can be so focused on cognitive thinking in churches and just bringing that embodied practice into things can be so, such a huge relief for neurodivergent people.

Rachel: Oh my gosh. I, yeah, I'm with you on that. Please tell me what else you were gonna say, because if we have time, I would love to come back to those sensory things. 

Zoe: I mean, we can go ahead with that. The only, the other thing I guess it kind of ties in, the other thing I was thinking about is non-verbal communication.

And um, that's again, something the center for Autism and Theology we're particularly interested in at the moment is minimally or non-speaking autistic people. And, um, where are those people in faith communities? And again, just. Yeah, what you're speaking about raises a lot of questions for me about that as well.

And yeah, those aren't necessarily questions, but just yeah, if you have any thoughts. No, 

Rachel: but the, oh, I have, I have thoughts and I have things that I wanna like raise up and, okay. Two things. Which one do you wanna talk about first? Non-vocal communication or the sensory experience. 

Zoe: You do whatever you want.

Go ahead. 

Rachel: Okay. Um, we'll start with sensory 'cause that was the one that. I don't know. You tickled my mind first. So I was listening to one of your previous podcast examples and you had a guest and they were talking about how like. I'm just gonna use church. Church can often feel very unsettling or unsafe because of all the sensory issues. Like for example, my husband grew up in a Catholic church, and so now if I try to burn incense. He like that for him, brings back feelings of inadequacy, scared, confusion.

Like it was one of those like visceral things when I lit incense in our home for the first time. And so like church can often be a very sensory overstimulating or under stimulating environment. And so there are like eight internal body systems that that inform our sensory input. So like. When you mention that, I'm thinking about all the ways that we are impacted in worship spaces.

And so if we have [00:30:00] opportunities to engage or, oh, what's the word? Self. Self-regulate. Self-regulate, these eight body senses within a spiritual environment that can be so much more powerful and inviting. 'cause we've got. Our sense of sight. We've got our sense of smell, we've got, or auditory, we've got taste, we've got tactile, but then we also have vestibular.

So our balance sense, we've got that external body awareness, our proprioception, and then we've got our internal body awareness that interoception. And so I'm thinking about like church-based practices of, and you have to forgive me, I was not. Raised in Catholicism. Is it genuflecting where you kneel before entering into the pew?

But like that idea of you have to kneel before going in, that's a social cue. That's something that Neurodiverse individuals need to be taught about and that impacts your. Your balance, right? When we're, if we're worshiping together, if we're in pews or we're collectively together, we have to be aware of that proprioception, that external body awareness, because there might be people rubbing up and close to you.

Um, so all of these things come back to our worship spaces and should be considerations in how we build out those spaces. So they are. Inviting and comfortable. Like we never had flexible seating or options to stand or sit or sit on the floor when I was going to church. That was never a choice. So that was me thinking about sensory experiences when you brought that up.

My other thought was about non-vocal communication. Um, I'm wondering. If I have a tool, I wonder if I have a tool that I could offer you to play with and see if it like works in your community. Have you ever heard of a website called Lesson picks? It's um, lesson like I'm teaching a lesson and then picks PIX.

It is a company that has picture based communication images preloaded and. It's designed for teachers and speech and language pathologists to build those communication boards with pictures, and that can be low tech or it could be high tech and transferred onto a device. But I'm wondering, I'm wondering if churches in your community, places of worship in my community, I'm wondering if we could.

Ask them, is that something you're interested in? Because lesson picks is one of those really generous companies that if you are a teacher or you are a teacher trainer, they will offer you free licenses so that your students can practice making these communication boards. I wonder if we have any resources in our [00:33:00] local places of worship for non-vocal communication. And that's something now I wanna look into. Like that's such a big area that I have never considered before. Right now, Zoe.

Zoe: Yeah. That's so interesting that you say that because, um, just to plug something, is this kind of like talking mats? Like is it the same kind of idea we have? Um, if, yeah, if our listeners wanna register, I recommend, we've got a conference in November where someone called Margot McKay is talking about.

Spirituality and religion and talking mats. Um, and it's something that I think our co-director has been looking at a bit because there's currently no talking mats as I think this is the case. There's no talking mats that talk about kinda spiritual practices very well. Um, so yeah, Margo Mackay is coming to talk about that at our conference in November, if any of our listeners wanna kind of hear about, um, that idea further.

But I think those things, you know, when like. You mentioned that idea, and I think it says there's so much weight to that when a few people have those kind of thoughts about, well this is missing from our church communities. What's, yeah, why is that, why so often in education's a little bit further ahead of church communities with these things?

Um, and yeah, it's fascinating. 

Rachel: I just pulled up talking mats. It looks very, very similar. Right. I would love to send you, um, a resource example after our podcast. Yeah. Because you, I, you just opened up my whole, whole mind because honestly, like I am working with some incredible students right now at Simpson.

My first semester here. One of my students brought a TikTok and they showed me this, and it was a playground and it was young students and they had one of those giant communication boards on the playground with all the pictures. And so students who were non-vocal could come up and touch and play on the playground.

And so they're showing me this and I was like, we can do that. So we got our lesson picks, um, services. I, it's like a $36 a year subscription and they gave it to us for free. Like how cool. So we got these, we started playing around with it. We invited the local principals, the local speech and language pathologists to give us feedback on our, on our examples that we were making.

We applied for a grant, and last year we installed 10 communication sign boards across our community. Fourth, the local elementary schools, and six at local parks. But like. That was my students noticing that gap in non-vocal communication and we were able to fill it. Like that's cool. You are telling me this and I'm wondering, I'm wondering what their worship communities are.

I'm wondering what our school worship community and like. I'm writing myself a note now to talk with our chaplain because she does some really cool sensory stuff already for our school community and like for interfaith worship. I wonder if this is something that she and I could talk about more. Ugh. Oh, cool.[00:36:00] 

Thanks for inviting me Zoe. Like this is such a great day. 

Zoe: It's so fun to chat to you. Um, yeah, I guess the other thing is like, when we're talking about all this, like, this is so cool, these ideas of like bringing like creative practice and sensory things into, I guess individual spiritu, spiritual lives as well as church spirituality.

Um, and I wondered if you had any thoughts on maybe people who are listening and thinking like, whoa, I'd really love to try like the Turlop technique in my own. Spiritual practice or like, I'd really love to encourage my church to do this. How would you recommend kind of people take that first step into trying these things and playing about with finding what works for them?

Rachel: Oh, okay. Um, in finding what works for them and how we take our first step.

I am. And always have been a, for lack of a better phrase, a try hard and like was labeled that in middle school. Um, but when I see people doing a. Interesting, powerful, creative things in the world. I, I want to try it too, like, I wanna get involved. I, I invite people to cold call, I invite people to send the email, to do the cringe thing and be like, Hey, I saw your work and it impacted me.

I wanna try this. Like, ask for what you want. Find a way to ask for what you want, or find somebody to help you. Ask for what you want, because like, if these are the spaces that we would want to play in. Other people are gonna wanna do it too. So like we have to find the people, the time, the energy, the cohort to help us expand ourselves.

Like nothing is done independently. So I'm thinking about if you want to play around and test these things. You should do it. You should absolutely do it. Like even, even the privacy of your home with a friend, someone who you feel safe, being messy with or uncomfortable or trying new things with. Like all of these things, all of these sensory ideas, they're so personal and we have to find what's our best method of expression.

Um, I also, my starting point was. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's a structured 12 week text. I believe she structured it off of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program, but instead of it focusing on that, it's 12 steps of recovering your inner artist. So for example, week one is recovering a sense of safety.

Week two is recovering a sense of identity. Week three is recovering a sense of power and so. Each week she has readings for you to do, but there's also daily journaling practices [00:39:00] where you are asked to just journal and get it out. But there's also weekly artist dates, so finding ways to like tickle your senses, taking yourself somewhere, um, and it doesn't have to cost money.

You could invest in that. That paint kit that you've been looking at for time or invest in a canvas, or you could just allow yourself to take a walk in nature and sit without your phone, like whatever artist date means to you and what creatively inspires you. That's the framework, that 12 step, 12 week framework, that's what got me moving and feeling like.

I could. And so through her text, she also talks about like the act of doing, like that's whatever method, whatever modality, whether it's clay or paint or handcrafting, the doing is the worship and that's what's serving the higher power, whatever you call the higher power, it's that that's your active service.

So I don't think that answers a question coherently, but I. I say go for it. Be messy. Figure out what sensory tools and sensations fill you up and renew because we have to know and manage our energy. And there are some cool people out there doing stuff to look to Her book is incredible. And another book recommendation is Sensory Life on the Spectrum by Becks Allerton.

It is. Came out in 2022. It's a comic anthology and I believe there's 30 to 50 different autistic individuals that contributed to it. But each is a little comic, maybe one page, up to five pages of how their. Autism shows up in their life, in their creativity. So you get every different voice, but you also get every different style of art and every different like experience of this neurodiversity.

Anyway, I say you find people, you be messy. And you learn about yourself. That's where I'm at. 

Zoe: Yeah, I love that. And I really like kind of, you mentioned this way back at the beginning, that idea of not focusing on the end product. And I wonder how much that, like, especially for like, this is a general statement, but a lot of neurodivergent people have experiences of failure or being told that they're not good enough.

Mm-hmm. And as does anyone, um, but obviously it's particularly the case when you experience the world differently. Um, and I just think that idea of like, um, kind of like being slightly more free from the idea of perfection and the idea of the end product is something that, that is spiritual in a way that kind of just like, actually I'm gonna focus on what I'm doing and how that is worship.

Yes. 

Rachel: Really that's that. Oh my gosh, that's such a hard one too. Um, that feeling of. [00:42:00] Or feelings of not good enough, not doing it adequately. Like those are feelings that plague me and I wonder if they plague others too, but that that's our internal sensor. And so back to Julia Cameron's book, she talks about our morning pages that writing by hand three pages every day.

That's her. Getting over the internal sensor, like when we wake up in the morning, that voice in your head is ready to tell you something, you have to get past it. Um, that did not happen for me right away, so I actually followed advice of someone else who sought out the answer. No. At least once every day, like I said previously, like ask for what you want because realistically you could get the yes or you could get the no, but the more we put ourselves out there and get used to having no said to us, the more able we are to move through those moments of criticism.

I'm saying we, I can only talk for myself. Let me back that up, but like. Things like at the grocery store asking, do you have a coupon to make my order price come down? They might say, no. Okay, I got my no for the day. I gotta keep it moving. Going up to people at the airport to see if there's any like flight upgrade.

Like that was a way I practiced getting my nose of the day because then I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I can put myself out there in this way. Maybe I can put myself out in a new way. But then that has led to me feeling more bold to email people, whether it's with a question or a, how can I get involved or a. I just really liked your work.

Thanks for contributing it and like those actions have led to me having more experiences in my life. So I think just to sum it up, we're going for it. We are neurodivergent and proud in all spaces, so let's just rock on. I think that might be the, the overall message. 

Zoe: Yeah. I love that. And um, yeah, I think that's a really great note to end on

It's been so much fun recording this episode with you and I hope that, um, yeah, our listeners have ideas. Um. Everything that's been talked about, I'll pop in the show notes. I'll also put Rachel's, um, website in there so you can see a bit more about all the different things that she does. Um, but yeah.

Thank you so much Rachel, and thank you to everyone who's listened. If you have any questions, you can message us at Autism Theology on X or Instagram or you can send us an email at cat@abdn.ac.uk. Even if it's just say hi, we'd love to hear from you and I mentioned during the episode we have the Faith in the Margins conference coming up in November the fifth or 7th of November, so please register for that if you haven't already and would like to come, we would really love for you to join us.

[00:45:00] Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology Podcast. If you have any questions for us or just wanna say hi, please email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on Twitter at Autism Theology.