I think animals help us remember that we shouldn't have to earn our right to exist. We're fine and beautiful and completely lovable when we're just s… - Devon Price

Laziness is usually a warning sign from our bodies and our minds that something is not working. The human body is so incredible at signaling when it needs something. But we have all learned to ignore those signals as much as possible because they're a threat to our productivity and our focus at work.

When we discuss the weight that stereotyping and Systemic Shame carry, it's hard not to contrast the lives of marginalized people, who are under nearly constant attack, and the lives of the comparatively more privileged, who carry the mark of Systemic Shame far less visibly. For the groups directly targeted by systems of oppression such as anti-Blackness or homophobia, the strength and stakes of Systemic Shame are undeniably more extreme. Yet it is also true that the varying degrees of isolation, self-blame, and societal condemnation that we all experience under Systemic Shame are of the same piece and that this massive social sickness of Systemic Shame will get better only once we begin to realize that we're all affected by it.

After researching Autism privately for about a year, I discovered the Autistic self-advocacy community. There was an entire movement led by Autistic people who argued we should view the disability as a perfectly normal form of human difference. These thinkers and activists said our way of being wasn't wrong at all; it was society's failure to adapt to our needs that left us feeling broken. People like Rabbi Ruti Regan (author of the blog Real Social Skills) and Amythest Schaber (the creator of the Neurowonderful video series) taught me about neurodiversity. I came to recognize that many disabilities are created or worsened by social exclusion.