Rooted, Not Rushed: Reclaiming Regulation as a Neurodivergent Professional

Rooted, Not Rushed: Reclaiming Regulation as a Neurodivergent ProfessionalCaitlin Hughes

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What Does It Mean to Be Regulated?

In a world that often expects us to be always-on, always-performing, regulation can get mistaken for stoicism. For stillness. For fitting in. But for many neurodivergent professionals, regulation isn’t about presenting calm. It’s about finding safety: in our bodies, in our boundaries, in the rhythm of our work.

Our society equates value with visibility. It rewards urgency, output, and endless adaptability: a pace that many of us were never designed to keep. For neurodivergent folks, this pace isn’t just exhausting, it can be deeply dysregulating. When we begin to slow down and pay attention to our internal cues, we realise regulation is not a destination but an ongoing dialogue between our bodies, environments, and relationships.

Burnout Isn’t a Weakness. It’s a Boundary Alarm.

Autistic burnout is more than stress or fatigue. It is a state of profound physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion resulting from prolonged exposure to environments and demands that mismatch our needs (Raymaker et al., 2020). For neurodivergent professionals, especially those masking or navigating unsupportive systems, burnout becomes an alarm bell — a signal that we have exceeded our sustainable capacity.

Unlike typical workplace burnout, autistic burnout often includes a loss of previously accessible skills, increased sensory sensitivity, and a deep erosion of self-concept. It can feel like all your internal resources have been used up, and there’s nothing left to carry you through. This isn’t about weakness. This is about surviving in an environment that doesn’t see or support your neurodivergent needs.

In supervision, this framing matters.

It allows us to shift from “How do I push through?” to “What conditions am I surviving and what do I need to recover?”

When we name burnout as a mismatch rather than a moral failure, we begin the work of reclamation: of pace, presence, and possibility.

The question then becomes: how do we know we’re nearing that edge? What early signals tell us we are reaching, or have passed, the threshold of what is sustainable? Often, the body whispers long before it shouts, and we need to attune to those whispers.

Regulation Is Physiological, Not Just Psychological

Emotional regulation is not about controlling emotions, it’s about understanding and responding to them with care. Many autistic individuals experience challenges with interoceptive awareness: the ability to recognise internal signals like hunger, fatigue, or anxiety. Combined with alexithymia (difficulty identifying and articulating emotions), this can make regulation feel elusive (Ben Hassen et al., 2023).

Layered onto this is the nervous system’s innate response to stress. According to polyvagal theory, our bodies respond to cues of safety or danger through subconscious pathways (Chua, 2023). When overwhelmed, we might enter fight-or-flight, or shut down completely. These are not moral failings or character flaws. They are protective responses. Responses that helped us survive, but that can also keep us stuck in cycles of dysregulation.

The Tree: Rooting into Your Rhythms

A tree doesn’t force itself to bloom. It honours its seasons. It draws nourishment from its roots. It bends with the wind, but it doesn’t break. And just like trees, we cannot be in constant summer. We must honour our autumns — our letting go — and our winters — our rest.

Regulation is not just about maintaining calm: it’s about knowing what grounds you, what drains you, and what restores you. This kind of self-awareness becomes a form of rooting. Each time we pause to notice…where am I at, what do I need, what am I carrying?…we are tending to those roots.

There is no universal formula for regulation. Some people need silence. Others need music. Some need movement; others stillness. What matters most is not necessarily the method, but the permission. The ongoing permission to be with ourselves, not against ourselves.

Regulation isn’t about “fixing” ourselves. It’s about finding practices that meet us where we are: practices that centre sustainability over striving. As Mantzalas et al. (2022) note, self-awareness and freedom to adapt are key protective factors. Regulation is not something we master. It’s something we return to. Again and again.

Redefining Self-Care and Success

Too often, productivity is centred as the measure of wellness. But for neurodivergent folks, success must be reframed away from speed, perfectionism, or visibility. Our needs don’t disappear just because a deadline arrives. Our worth isn’t tied to how well we can mask exhaustion.

Self-care is not indulgence. It’s infrastructure. Neuroaffirming self-care practices might not look like mainstream “wellness,” but they regulate, nourish, and sustain. They are our roots.

Cooper et al. (2021) highlight that supporting autistic identity through neuroaffirming practices improves wellbeing and reduces burnout. We can honour self-care not as a checkbox, but as an evolving, relational practice. We can also look at how systemic conditions affect our capacity to care for ourselves, because sustainability is never a solo act.

We can learn, slowly, that regulation is not a reward for doing things “right.” It is our right, and our resource.

To make this tangible, one small practice you might explore is the Mini-Practice: Daily Tree Check, a nervous system-friendly way to reflect, reorient, and root into sustainable rhythms: FREE RESOURCE LINK

An Invitation to Grow Differently

You are allowed to grow slowly. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to take root before you bloom.

Regulation is not about taming yourself. It’s about trusting yourself. About knowing the difference between surviving and sustaining. About finding a rhythm that honours your nervous system, your needs, your now.

The Ripple Framework for Neurodivergent Flourishing: Supervision Program, is a gentle turning toward sustainability. A reorientation from urgency to rhythm. From performance to presence. From burnout to balance.

Join the interest list to receive first access and quiet invitations as it takes shape: https://www.catharticcollaborations.com.au/ripple-framework-of-neurodivergent-flourishing-supervision-program

References

Ben Hassen, N., Molins, F., Garrote-Petisco, D., & Serrano, M. Á. (2023). Emotional regulation deficits in autism spectrum disorder: The role of alexithymia and interoception. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 132, 104378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104378

Chua, C. K. (2023). Using polyvagal theory to understand autistic meltdown. Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 6(4), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.54392/ajir2342

Cooper, R., Cooper, K., Russell, A. J., & Smith, L. G. E. (2021). “I’m proud to be a little bit different”: The effects of autistic individuals’ perceptions of autism and autism social identity on their collective self-esteem. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(2), 704–714. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04575-4

Mantzalas, J., Richdale, A. L., & Dissanayake, C. (2022). A conceptual model of risk and protective factors for autistic burnout. Autism Research, 15(6), 976–987. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2722

Raymaker, D. M., Teo, A. R., Steckler, N. A., Lentz, B., Scharer, M., Delos Santos, A., Kapp, S. K., Hunter, M., Joyce, A., & Nicolaidis, C. (2020). “Having all of your internal resources exhausted beyond measure and being left with no clean-up crew”: Defining autistic burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0079