Mike and Chaya sit down with Kristin Walker, the founder of the Mental Health News Radio Network, to discuss her late-in-life discovery of being autistic and having ADHD. Kristin opens up about the emotional toll of masking, the powerful shift that came with her diagnosis, and how those experiences inspired her to amplify diverse voices in mental health.
Mike and Chaya sit down with Kristin Walker, the founder of the Mental Health News Radio Network, to discuss her late-in-life discovery of being autistic and having ADHD. Kristin opens up about the emotional toll of masking, the powerful shift that came with her diagnosis, and how those experiences inspired her to amplify diverse voices in mental health.
We Also Cover:
Quotes:
About Kristin Walker:
Kristin Walker is the founder and CEO of Mental Health News Radio Network and CEO of everythingEHR. With over 20 years of experience as a technology consultant for global organizations, Kristin has successfully merged her technical expertise with her passion for mental health advocacy. Under her leadership, Mental Health News Radio Network has grown into a prominent platform featuring multiple shows covering diverse aspects of mental wellness, personal development, and behavioral health innovation. As an Electronic Health Records Expert for Behavioral Health Organizations, she regularly speaks at healthcare conferences and consults with hospital systems across the country. Kristin's unique approach emphasizes collaborative leadership and creating inclusive spaces for different perspectives on mental health, making her a respected voice in both the technology and mental health communities.
Connect with Kristin:
Related Reading:
[Mike] Hello there.
[Mike] I'm Mike.
[Chaya] I'm Chaya.
[Mike] And I am thrilled to introduce our guest for today, Kristin Walker, the founder of mental health news radio network, which features dozens of shows covering everything from clinical approaches to personal developments and innovative healing modalities.
[Mike] A sought after speaker and consultant for health care systems, she has a special commitment to elevating the diverse voices in the mental health space.
[Mike] Welcome to the show, Kristin.
[Kristin Walker] Thanks for having me.
[Kristin Walker] That's a good bio.
[Kristin Walker] You must have edited it.
[Kristin Walker] I like it.
[Kristin Walker] I like it better.
[Kristin Walker] I want that.
[Chaya] So welcome to the show, Kristin.
[Chaya] It's such an honor to have you.
[Chaya] I'm so curious about your journey and what got you here and why mental health is so important for you that you have this network of shows and you're promoting mental health, which I'm I and my both are passionate about it.
[Chaya] So I wanna hear about your why.
[Kristin Walker] Gotcha.
[Kristin Walker] My why.
[Kristin Walker] Well, I had a very rocky start in life with a lot of trauma, generational trauma, and a lot of sexual abuse and, you know, all those lovely things that set you on a really good collision course with depression.
[Kristin Walker] And, I also didn't know that I was autistic and had ADHD until 2024.
[Kristin Walker] So I'm going through the mind map that one goes through where you you reevaluate your entire life through this new lens, which is awesome.
[Kristin Walker] I say that because that also fed, I know it did, my interest in all things to do with psychology, because I was trying to figure out what is wrong with me.
[Kristin Walker] Why I know I have trauma.
[Kristin Walker] I get it.
[Kristin Walker] I've had tons of therapy.
[Kristin Walker] I've been to shamans.
[Kristin Walker] I've been to psychiatrists.
[Kristin Walker] I, you know, I've done all the things.
[Kristin Walker] And why do I still just not really get what other people seem to get?
[Kristin Walker] Why do I always feel like I'm running down this long hallway?
[Kristin Walker] Remember the movie Poltergeist where she's running down the hallway to get to this is old school, you know, the original Poltergeist.
[Kristin Walker] If I don't know if there was a remake.
[Kristin Walker] But anyway, that's what I felt like my life was.
[Kristin Walker] Just running down a hallway, trying to get to all the doors that other people seem to be able to open just without breaking a sweat or even if they break a sweat, it's like, I did it.
[Kristin Walker] And I just couldn't get there.
[Kristin Walker] You know, it just the hallway kept getting longer and longer and longer.
[Kristin Walker] And so I just always wanted to study mental health because, you know, that's where I was having the issue, you know, in in my head.
[Kristin Walker] And that led me to doing podcasting at at the time when people were laughing at podcasting.
[Kristin Walker] This was fourteen years ago, I guess.
[Kristin Walker] People were like, what a joke.
[Kristin Walker] Sure.
[Kristin Walker] Little podcaster or whatever that is, come to our big conference and we'll let you interview all these super rock stars in mental health because we don't really know what you're doing.
[Kristin Walker] And so that was fantastic because I got to cut my teeth on people like doctor Gabor Mate and, you know, many, many, many peop but in terms of starting the network, it was really just pressure from other people that were guests, that were regulars, that said, hey, we we want our own shows.
[Kristin Walker] Will you help us produce them?
[Kristin Walker] And I said no forever because that sounded like a heck of a lot of work.
[Kristin Walker] And there was no one for me to call and say, how do you set up a mental health network for podcasting?
[Kristin Walker] People just sort of looked at it like my weird hobby.
[Kristin Walker] And surprisingly, people just joined and joined and joined and joined, and and it's morphed and changed, you know, as people know how to create their own podcast.
[Kristin Walker] But the point of it is when I started, you could not go to, say, a coffee shop or a nail salon or a barbershop shop or wherever, and just say, Hey, I have anxiety without crickets and people looking around like, Oh, things just got real uncomfortable.
[Kristin Walker] And what I've watched happen over the course of, of being involved in the mental health field, and maybe we played like a small part in that, is that you can walk in anywhere and say, I have anxiety and everybody runs over and goes, yeah, me too.
[Kristin Walker] Oh, yeah.
[Kristin Walker] How do you deal with it?
[Kristin Walker] Blah blah blah.
[Kristin Walker] That was the point of the network.
[Kristin Walker] We've done our job.
[Kristin Walker] You know, our our small parts part of that.
[Chaya] You brought about a point, in in your you know, first of all, I I want to say sorry for all the hardship that you endured in your childhood and your early years that resulted in mental health.
[Chaya] But I want to understand what is the connection between the neurodivergent mind and mental health issues, that special connection that you saw in your life because mental health can is important for everybody, right, whether neurodivergent or not, but there's there's something there's a pattern that I see that is common amongst neurodivergent and and the mental health problems that they experience.
[Chaya] So what what do you what have you noticed and what is your take on that?
[Kristin Walker] My take on it is very pro neurodivergent and I've even been accused a couple of times of not being neurotypical friendly, which is completely not true.
[Kristin Walker] It's just when you embark on this journey, you find this out about yourself.
[Kristin Walker] You go through stages.
[Kristin Walker] And one of those stages is really being angry at how you've been treated as someone who's different and mostly by people that are not neurodivergent.
[Kristin Walker] So I definitely went through that stage and I'm okay with that.
[Kristin Walker] I am so okay with my life being out there in the way that it is because it, it seems to help some people.
[Kristin Walker] And even if it's just like this many people, I'm okay with that.
[Kristin Walker] But in terms of why, I think it's because we are so my experience of neurodivergence is that I am so sensitive, so profoundly sensitive.
[Kristin Walker] I need my world to be quiet.
[Kristin Walker] I need it to be peaceful.
[Kristin Walker] All these things that I need in order to function at my best are actually things that would help everyone neurodivergent or not.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] That's how I see it.
[Kristin Walker] It's just that that's not how the world has been set up so far.
[Kristin Walker] I believe we are going in that direction, but so it just makes it so that you already don't feel like you fit in nothing is set up to help you know what's up with you.
[Kristin Walker] If you go into the rabbit hole of getting diagnosed, if I had done that in the past, I probably wouldn't have gotten diagnosed.
[Kristin Walker] And the help that was available was based on old systems and structures around what autism is and what ADHD is.
[Kristin Walker] And so it would not have been helpful.
[Kristin Walker] So I guess what I'm saying is when you are neurodivergent, it feels like the world is stacked up against you, not for you.
[Kristin Walker] And you have to excavate yourself and the world in order to get to a place of peace about it so that you can actually function well.
[Kristin Walker] And you have to be like, I call it ninja self care, which is also not necessarily supported, but we're getting there.
[Kristin Walker] So I I don't know if that's that's my loosey goosey answer to your question, Shania.
[Chaya] It's it's a wonderful ninja.
[Chaya] Yes.
[Chaya] You have to figure it out yourself.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] Use your nonlinear thinking to get out of that system that is forcing you to be someone who you're not.
[Kristin Walker] And and
[Chaya] that's where all the mental health issues come from when someone is not allowing you to be yourself.
[Chaya] But instead of taking the victim mode, just take ownership for your own growth and you can get out of that place of being stuck and helpless.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, my god, think about how strong we are because when I think about, like, I didn't have anywhere to go to ask for help with this particular thing because I was born in 1970.
[Kristin Walker] So there was there was nothing for me there, you know, and I wouldn't have met criteria because I can be very social, although it's very exhausting.
[Kristin Walker] But I can put on a mask, you know, like it, like nobody's business.
[Kristin Walker] So, yeah, it's, it's interesting to traverse this and it coincided with my own journey around being a victim, which I was, but how long I stayed in that victim energy, even though I was out and I was speaking and I was doing tours and talking about child abuse, I still was living in a victim mode.
[Kristin Walker] And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
[Kristin Walker] There is nothing I'm telling you right now, zero wrong with that.
[Kristin Walker] It's just that at some point, you do want to get out of survival mode and be in thrive mode, which is what it seems like everyone else, not everybody, but a lot of people are able to do.
[Kristin Walker] And it's just harder for a neurodivergent person.
[Kristin Walker] So it seems to, to get to that because you are bullied.
[Kristin Walker] Predatory people love autistic people, especially those of us that don't know where they're just like, Oh, yay.
[Kristin Walker] I can have fun winding this person around for hours.
[Kristin Walker] And that's glee for me.
[Kristin Walker] And they're in torment, you know?
[Kristin Walker] So it, you, the world tells you you're a victim, you're a victim, you're a victim, and still you rise and still you rise.
[Kristin Walker] And then you get to the point where I'm at where I'm like, oh, I'm not a victim anymore.
[Kristin Walker] I I can be in situations where I'm being victimized, but I do not internalize that to be my state of being anymore.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] I'm me.
[Kristin Walker] I'm a freaking warrior.
[Kristin Walker] Okay.
[Kristin Walker] To get through as far as I have gotten, I'm a warrior.
[Kristin Walker] I know this about myself now.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] But I, and I can ninja my away oh, away from narcissistic people like nobody's business.
[Kristin Walker] But but now kindly because I understand that from a soul perspective and all kinds of things that we can get into, but yes.
[Kristin Walker] It it's fascinating.
[Kristin Walker] So anyway
[Chaya] You can I think once we get out, we can block we can block it?
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] We can block that negative energy that's coming your way.
[Chaya] But when you don't know, you're just soaking it all in.
[Kristin Walker] You're walking around with open receiver.
[Kristin Walker] Every chakra is open.
[Kristin Walker] You're just wide open and you're like, boom, boom, boom, boom with all the energy that's out there.
[Kristin Walker] You know,
[Chaya] there's no boundaries, right?
[Chaya] Boundaries is a learned skill.
[Chaya] Everybody has to learn something, and that's one of the things that I've learned.
[Chaya] I had zero boundaries just putting myself out there and, of course, being sensitive, super sensitive, just getting affected and just interacting with the world, reacting for everything.
[Chaya] But once you figure out that formula, that secret formula, Not a secret, but nobody tells you that because that's they don't teach these things in school, and you have to figure it out yourself somehow, and then you don't have to be in that place.
[Kristin Walker] You know what I think is awesome?
[Kristin Walker] I love how I spent, like, seven years doing everything related to autism without having a clue about myself and where I learned amazing boundaries and why I think now I spent so much time going into classrooms, the special class you know, special needs classroom with my therapy dog.
[Kristin Walker] I would go every week and I did so much of that.
[Kristin Walker] And now I realize, oh, I wanted to be there because I wanted that to be my classroom because you know what they're talking about with these kids?
[Kristin Walker] This is my area.
[Kristin Walker] These are my boundaries, and those are your I mean, that was not part of my teaching experience, but I got to experience it as an adult while I'm there to help.
[Kristin Walker] And I was actually getting all the help for myself.
[Kristin Walker] It was informing me, oh, this is what this can be like.
[Kristin Walker] Got it.
[Mike] So you're getting a lot of secondhand, like, healing from going through the mode of helping others, which I think is all too common, especially for neurodivergents who are late realized, who do a lot of things unconsciously and find themselves attracted to certain, I think, practices and methods that they don't quite know what we're why we're drifting towards that, why we seem to resonate with it.
[Mike] I was definitely that way with a lot of things pre realization and diagnosis.
[Mike] You know, I would do so many, like, sensory accommodations for myself without even realizing I didn't even know I was doing accommodations.
[Mike] I would just try to justify it in different ways for myself.
[Mike] You talked about going from sort of like you had your voice, but you still had the mindset of victimization, and you were able to move out of that.
[Mike] What practices yourself did brought you to that mindset shift?
[Kristin Walker] Oh my god.
[Kristin Walker] Multiple shamans, multiple therapists, multiple life experiences, reading.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, just, you know, all of those, like, study, self study.
[Kristin Walker] And, I mean, it you guys know what I'm saying here.
[Kristin Walker] Okay?
[Kristin Walker] So what normal person would create a whole network and a whole business model and and not care about that part of it.
[Kristin Walker] Really.
[Kristin Walker] I just wanted to question really smart people in mental health and have a all stage pass, you know, to do that.
[Kristin Walker] And I've got, you know, like ten thousand hours of, of doing that, being interviewed, interviewing, mostly interviewing, or having got, excuse me, conversations.
[Kristin Walker] What normal person puts that much study into, into those kinds of things?
[Kristin Walker] Well, it was for me to learn because I I had to invent a way to learn things that I wasn't getting.
[Kristin Walker] And that is something that is so great about our brains.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Okay.
[Kristin Walker] We can't it's not here.
[Kristin Walker] It's not available.
[Kristin Walker] We'll just invent a way to help ourselves.
[Kristin Walker] It's it's freaking awesome that we do that.
[Kristin Walker] And I'm I'm glad that I have this brain so that I because while I didn't know things and I wasn't gonna get the information, I still cared enough about myself to keep asking questions, and I love that.
[Kristin Walker] I love that.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] I think that's common amongst us, the the curiosity brain Yeah.
[Chaya] Of the hunting.
[Chaya] We are hunting for information.
[Chaya] And when you look for that information, you're gonna find it, right, because it's there.
[Chaya] And and and actually, it's there inside of you.
[Chaya] It's not outside of you.
[Chaya] And that's what these shamans and therapists are all helping you go inwards because you have the answer for everything.
[Chaya] But the world is built in such a way that we are all externally focused, that nobody teaches us going inwards and that's why I love meditation.
[Chaya] I do the chakra meditation and all of that, but but I wish schools taught this from day one, just a practice of going inside, sitting with your feelings and and it's all okay and it's okay to be sensitive.
[Chaya] It's okay to cry.
[Chaya] All of that is perfectly fine instead of these rules that they have.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] I noticed with my brain, and I know this with with interesting working with AI the way that I do.
[Kristin Walker] I noticed I'm learning about how my brain works now because I can sort of I can pull it away from myself like a Rubik's cube and see it utilizing the functionality in AI and go, oh, I'm getting a full, you know, 360 degree view of my brain, how it works within my body, and I've not been able to do that before.
[Kristin Walker] And so now that I and I also have information.
[Kristin Walker] Information, knowledge is so much power.
[Kristin Walker] So now that I know these things about myself, I'd say the diagnosis was the final stage of me letting go of being able to let go of the victim part of my life and also to let it go with reverence because I needed it for that long.
[Kristin Walker] And that's okay.
[Kristin Walker] It's okay.
[Kristin Walker] I just don't need that anymore.
[Kristin Walker] You know, I have information, so now I can be empowered.
[Kristin Walker] And that's why it's so important for people to know these things and then get to the place where, okay, I'm not a label, I'm not a diagnosis, but I think you got to go through the stage of getting those things before you can get to the bigger, you know, macro picture of what this is for you.
[Kristin Walker] Does that make sense?
[Mike] Yeah.
[Mike] And accept that there are various stages to it.
[Mike] You know, it's not just gonna be a straight line.
[Mike] You're probably gonna double back on a couple stages and try to take in as much as you can because there's no kind of right or wrong way to kind of go about finding yourself.
[Mike] You can take bits and bobs of a million different things and modalities and start to utilize them in new beautiful ways that maybe the person you got the idea from had never considered using it for.
[Mike] And, you know, there are a lot that of modalities that are considered maybe controversial or, you know, that's not even right, polarizing to a degree.
[Mike] And going back to the network and what you created, how do you sort of approach those topics being talked about on various shows in a way that's or is both, like, you're able to allow that level of freedom, but ensure there's maybe, like there is maybe an ethical boundary that's in place?
[Kristin Walker] Well, I have a lot of disclaimers because I don't I can't be responsible for what everyone else says and everyone else has their own opinions about things.
[Kristin Walker] So I I'm not the the content police, and I don't want to be.
[Kristin Walker] So I put in protections for myself and the network that, you know, this is that person's opinion, you know, all that legal stuff.
[Kristin Walker] But in terms of the vibe of it, it's more the vibe of it is just I I'm now at a play I I have let everybody in.
[Kristin Walker] Like, I had to build the network.
[Kristin Walker] I let everybody in and I made all those missteps.
[Kristin Walker] I don't wanna call them mistakes because they're so golden.
[Kristin Walker] You know?
[Kristin Walker] I don't wanna put a negative connotation on all those things I learned and and that are aired, you know, things I've talked about on the air that now I would look at and go, what just came out your mouth?
[Kristin Walker] That is what you thought at that time.
[Kristin Walker] Thank God you've evolved a bit, Kristin.
[Kristin Walker] And that is still on the air.
[Kristin Walker] People are gonna hear that and think that that's you today.
[Kristin Walker] You need to take that down.
[Kristin Walker] And I'm like, no.
[Kristin Walker] It's a journey.
[Kristin Walker] It's a journey.
[Kristin Walker] All for all of us.
[Kristin Walker] It's such a journey.
[Kristin Walker] One day, maybe when I'm 80, I'll we'll go back and and go, wow.
[Kristin Walker] Okay.
[Kristin Walker] That's my journey.
[Kristin Walker] Interesting.
[Kristin Walker] And we'll have tools to go and grab all that and put it into a nice format for yourself using AI, which is amazing.
[Kristin Walker] But so, you know, it it's, it's it's exciting to watch.
[Kristin Walker] I guess when you get out of victim stage, you have this room for compassion for yourself now, because you're not just what's coming at me.
[Kristin Walker] What's what sociopath is gonna come around the corner and knock me for a loop, but, you know, just all that kind of stuff.
[Kristin Walker] When you don't when there's an absence of that kind of energy, it opens up the room for you to invite all this, you know, this love in and all this knowledge and all this peace about yourself.
[Kristin Walker] And then you can look at yourself with all this forgiveness and compassion.
[Kristin Walker] Oh, yeah.
[Kristin Walker] That is what I thought when I was 22.
[Kristin Walker] Pretty shallow, but okay.
[Kristin Walker] I love myself anyway.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Chaya] We are we are constantly evolving.
[Chaya] So it's totally okay that we were a certain type back then and we are like this now.
[Chaya] At least we are growing, right, which is a great sign.
[Chaya] And I think just having an open mind helps helps us to grow and just allowing information from different angles and perspectives and and that curious brain, will help us evolve and eventually get out.
[Chaya] And you're in a place where you're absolutely in love with yourself and that is in a piece and you're actually doing what you've come here to do on this planet.
[Kristin Walker] And yeah.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] You're not you're not you know, you you can tell tell yourself a bit of a story, which I have done of, oh, are you gonna get really narcissistic now?
[Kristin Walker] Like, you're gonna just stare into the beauty of yourself and just fall in love?
[Kristin Walker] Like, you know, you're looking in the pool of water and you're seeing only your reflection and you're just, and it no.
[Kristin Walker] No.
[Kristin Walker] It's not about that.
[Kristin Walker] It that's really, really what self love is actually about, which is so different than that shallow pool.
[Kristin Walker] You know?
[Kristin Walker] It's so different.
[Kristin Walker] But I I understand the knee jerk reaction.
[Kristin Walker] You don't wanna become that which has oppressed you.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Very shallow narcissistic people have been oppressors.
[Kristin Walker] They've been teachers really, but they've felt like huge oppressors and you don't wanna become that which you have been, you know, you have experienced bullying from.
[Kristin Walker] But that's, I think, the last sign that comes to you to try to keep you from really taking the leap into yourself.
[Kristin Walker] Like, you know, you get all these fear road signs.
[Kristin Walker] Don't go there.
[Kristin Walker] Don't enter.
[Kristin Walker] No, no.
[Kristin Walker] Because it's your ego or whatever it is trying to keep you safe.
[Kristin Walker] Don't dive into yourself that way.
[Kristin Walker] You'll do this.
[Kristin Walker] You'll do this.
[Kristin Walker] And the reality is no, no, no, no.
[Kristin Walker] Do it.
[Kristin Walker] Just breeze past those road signs.
[Kristin Walker] Those are not red flags.
[Kristin Walker] Those are indicators that you need to keep excavating.
[Kristin Walker] And if you do that, what a great experience in life.
[Kristin Walker] It just takes on a whole different meaning.
[Kristin Walker] It doesn't mean that you don't still get depressed, that you don't still have burnout, that you don't have to watch your spoons, you know, if you follow the spoon theory, but it does mean that I now can say to instead of being a golden retriever that someone says, hey, Kristin, I want you to go do this.
[Kristin Walker] And I want you to spend your own money to do this thing for me, which I would have happily done for a mill tons of people and have done.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Now I go, there's this room.
[Kristin Walker] There's a space that's been created.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Where I go where I have discernment and I go, I don't wanna put my energy there, so I kindly say no.
[Kristin Walker] And I'm like, who?
[Kristin Walker] Who just said that?
[Kristin Walker] Was that me?
[Kristin Walker] Oh, yeah.
[Kristin Walker] That's me now.
[Kristin Walker] Yay.
[Kristin Walker] I can say no.
[Kristin Walker] How fantastic.
[Mike] So much of self love is viewed as very egotistical and but it's about being gentle with yourself and trusting yourself.
[Mike] So much of it so much of self hate comes from learned behavior of, I know in my own personal life, one of the reasons I'm, I have such a difficult time, maybe I'm good at something or even volunteering myself for things that I know I would maybe excel at is from wanting to do the exact opposite of behavior that I have seen from someone in my life for a very long time, and I don't wanna repeat that.
[Mike] So you go down well, to be the opposite of that, I have to admonish myself.
[Mike] I have to be so full of humility that I can never be compared to this thing that I see and that So true.
[Mike] Has also harmed me in so many ways.
[Mike] But it's it's just working in another extreme.
[Mike] It's it's one of the great ways this is goes for everybody, but it's one of the great ways that autistic people are also greatly sort of harmed and victimized by very egotistical people.
[Mike] And for narcissists, it's, you know, what what what are autistics good at?
[Mike] They're good for masking and taking on the empathetic qualities of somebody else.
[Mike] So narcissistic people tend to gravitate towards that, so they get to have a mirror image of themselves, but one that they can kind of abuse if they so wish.
[Mike] But with egotistical people, if we see that, it's we we're very rule based in black and white.
[Mike] So, okay, that bad, so opposite must be good.
[Mike] But, yeah, opposites opposite is just bad towards us.
[Mike] Like, it's not really helping anything.
[Mike] It's it's just a it falls into honestly, self hate is just another form of self harm just from a psychological perspective when you're not allowing yourself to believe in things you can do or trust yourself to follow through or just be a functioning human being most of the time.
[Mike] You get stuck in those loops.
[Kristin Walker] You know, I think I I felt like and this just came up from what you're saying.
[Kristin Walker] So thank you, Mike, because this just popped in my brain that I think that I was trying so, so, so very hard to be a sheep because that's what the world told me you should be.
[Kristin Walker] You know, you should get married.
[Kristin Walker] You should have kids.
[Kristin Walker] You should be partnered up with somebody.
[Kristin Walker] You should start a business.
[Kristin Walker] Like you should do, you should go to college.
[Kristin Walker] You should all these things that I should be doing.
[Kristin Walker] And so I was really trying to be a good sheep for a long time.
[Kristin Walker] And I was so angry and resentful and unhappy with this being a sheep, right, that I finally went, I don't, I don't wanna be a sheep anymore.
[Kristin Walker] I wanna be me, whatever that is, however ugly, beautiful, whatever.
[Kristin Walker] I just wanna be that.
[Kristin Walker] I do not wanna be over here.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] I cannot do this anymore.
[Kristin Walker] I won't survive.
[Kristin Walker] I won't want to survive if I'm gonna live within this narrow space and all and my sheep life goes through this narrow space.
[Kristin Walker] I just can't do it.
[Kristin Walker] So, yay.
[Kristin Walker] I got out of that.
[Kristin Walker] Hallelujah.
[Kristin Walker] And now it's like, it's scary.
[Kristin Walker] It's daunting.
[Kristin Walker] It's interesting, but that's the best part for the neurodivergent mind.
[Kristin Walker] If it's interesting, we will stick with it.
[Kristin Walker] So sometimes it's like hacking yourself, like your own biohack of I'm gonna make me and doing good for me super interesting in the weirdest way possible.
[Kristin Walker] That would make a neurodivergent person go, oh, hell yeah.
[Kristin Walker] I'll do that.
[Kristin Walker] No, because it's anything that, you know, explosion.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] Oh, oh, oh, oh.
[Kristin Walker] Anything that's going to distract us.
[Kristin Walker] So you you have to kinda hack yourself.
[Kristin Walker] And I don't mean like, oh, you know, self help guru.
[Kristin Walker] Those are great too.
[Kristin Walker] Those books are great about hacking yourself and whatever.
[Kristin Walker] But I mean, like, those are great informational things that you take some and some of it you leave on the aside.
[Kristin Walker] Most of it is really, you know you.
[Kristin Walker] Like, you know you because you've been watching you struggle for how long?
[Kristin Walker] Like, you know what your gotchas are, what your shadow is, what your fault, where you're gonna try to do something noble.
[Kristin Walker] And then your ego is gonna come at, you know, you know, you, so be you get into that and make it really interesting the journey so that your neurodivergent brain goes, I don't care about the squirrel over here anymore.
[Kristin Walker] I'm gonna go over here and look at this.
[Kristin Walker] And this is how I create this great map to myself, which is the ultimate journey.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Isn't that the ultimate journey?
[Kristin Walker] I have more compassion and love and care for the world than I ever have because I do this for myself.
[Kristin Walker] Okay.
[Kristin Walker] I'm off my soapbox.
[Kristin Walker] Sorry.
[Mike] No.
[Mike] It's it's self awareness.
[Mike] Right?
[Mike] It's that's it's all it comes down to is being self aware.
[Mike] And part of being self aware, ironically, is isn't, like, seeing yourself as the one and only, which I think Yeah.
[Mike] Many people kind of think that's how it's gonna be.
[Mike] Like, oh, I'm so important.
[Mike] Part of being self aware is also recognizing you're a dot on a big floating rock amongst a lot of other dots.
[Kristin Walker] Is TDP is the greatest sand on the longest beach you've ever seen.
[Kristin Walker] Exactly.
[Mike] And, like, there's a lot of freedom in that too.
[Mike] There's a lot of, oh, I'm not I'm not actually important.
[Mike] But every well, as I've said a couple times on the show, if everything is insignificant, then anything you decide to be significant can be.
[Mike] And that goes for anything in your life.
[Mike] Like, this is important to me because I want it to be.
[Mike] How I view myself is important to me because it's how I view myself.
[Mike] It doesn't make me bigger than anybody else.
[Mike] You know, it it goes back to what you said about being called, like, kind of anti holistic.
[Mike] You know, I'm sure people can listen to this show and and think that I've definitely said some vaguely militant sounding things in regards to, like, being mad at holistics.
[Mike] But, like, no.
[Mike] That doesn't come from a place like, trust me.
[Mike] Nobody wants to be, quote, unquote, normal more than us most of the time.
[Mike] We spent we the problem one of the reasons we're mad is because we wasted so much of our time trying to be, and it upsets us that we kinda don't get a, yes.
[Mike] Sorry.
[Mike] You tried to copy us so hard that you hurt yourself.
[Mike] And instead, we get we still we still get, like, no.
[Mike] You should definitely try to be like us.
[Mike] Like, that's no.
[Mike] Like, you're not giving us you're not meeting us halfway here.
[Mike] Like, we're we're asking for very simple simple things that doesn't affect you negatively, doesn't will probably only help you in the long run as you said.
[Mike] Like, that's not us being anti holistic.
[Mike] That's just us going like, no.
[Mike] We're owed the same amount.
[Mike] Like, you know how you're being really defensive right now?
[Mike] Like, yeah.
[Mike] That's how we feel all the goddamn time.
[Kristin Walker] Yes.
[Kristin Walker] Exactly.
[Kristin Walker] All oh, but god.
[Kristin Walker] The amount it's the amount of time that I spent angry and not really, like, being able to figure out why I was so angry with all this therapy I've done.
[Kristin Walker] I don't know.
[Kristin Walker] It's kinda it's really interesting to play around with energy because that is the thing for neurodivergent people, your energy, the energy of the world, the energy of a space you're in, the energy of animals.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, all of this, it's all about that.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Like, is the where is the volume, and how is that hitting you?
[Kristin Walker] And so when you start removing things from your life, right, all of a sudden, you have less system noise.
[Kristin Walker] And what is it that plagues the neurodivergent person more than anything?
[Kristin Walker] Says, noise.
[Kristin Walker] Oh my god.
[Kristin Walker] It's insane.
[Kristin Walker] It's it's the fact that we're that many rehabs and mental health institutions and so on are just the halls are lined with neurodivergent people because we just need the volume to go down.
[Kristin Walker] Like take it all the way down and then build it slowly back up to what you can tolerate.
[Kristin Walker] It's and tolerate to get by, but then also get out of the toleration the tolerating mode of, I don't have to tolerate this.
[Kristin Walker] So take ownership of, I don't have to build up stamina in order to deal with how the world is.
[Kristin Walker] That's that old system.
[Kristin Walker] It's, I'm going to turn the volume down and I'm going to ratchet it up because there are times that I do need to be careful out there in the world, but I'm not going to let that control me.
[Kristin Walker] I'm not gonna let I'm not gonna live in a space where I have to constantly contort myself in order to be accepted and understood.
[Kristin Walker] And since I don't always get that from out there, I'm gonna damn sure make sure that that's going on inside of here with myself because that has a ripple effect out into the world.
[Chaya] And once you understand energy, you will realize how important it is, and we can actually control our own energies, right, and and elevate to a place where we are emitting love and empathy and just courage and creativity, all of that, and and create boundaries so that the external energies don't affect us.
[Chaya] And once you realize that, it's that's where it becomes magic.
[Chaya] And Absolutely.
[Chaya] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] Suddenly, you're like, well, I feel like I've been wandering around.
[Kristin Walker] Like, my my biological father, I know was autistic, is has autism.
[Kristin Walker] Don't have a relationship with him, but he was my primary abuser.
[Kristin Walker] But I understand why because he was autistic, and he also was a genius.
[Kristin Walker] He was a musical prodigy.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, any instrument.
[Kristin Walker] I don't care if it's, hey, we got a new instrument out of made out of a pair of scissors and a pen.
[Kristin Walker] He would master that and turn it into Chopin.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, he could play any instrument.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] And I just piano, all those things.
[Kristin Walker] And I noticed that what I did because of the abuse is I did the whole thing, Mike, you were talking about earlier about throwing the baby out with the bath water.
[Kristin Walker] And Chaya, you talked about that too.
[Kristin Walker] Just of I'm going to have nothing to do with creativity because this is what happened to me.
[Kristin Walker] So I just, at 12 years old, I went and shut my very lifeblood.
[Kristin Walker] I shut it down in order to fit in and to hide what had to be so horribly wrong with me, because why would I, how could I be a good person if this is what was done to me?
[Kristin Walker] It just all that stuff, you know, that goes on.
[Kristin Walker] And so the journey of going sifting through all of that and and then now going, oh my gosh.
[Kristin Walker] I just haven't had the right paintbrush.
[Kristin Walker] I have all this art and this creativity within me.
[Kristin Walker] I use my voice to let it out, and now I have other tools that weren't available to me then just like my diagnosis wasn't available to me then.
[Kristin Walker] So I'm not I'm so grateful to have it now that I kinda I've gone through the stages of being angry at what wasn't, at what I didn't have, at how hard things were.
[Kristin Walker] And that's an important part of the journey, but I'm done with that now.
[Kristin Walker] And now I'm just like, I'm so excited at all this stuff that I get to do and that I have my paintbrush now, which is technology.
[Kristin Walker] For me, my paintbrush has always been technology.
[Kristin Walker] And so I'm just excited that now I get to spend I'm 55.
[Kristin Walker] So however long I live, I'm gonna squeeze the creativity out everywhere I can.
[Chaya] We have come here to create.
[Chaya] And if we are not creating, it's gonna show up in weird ways.
[Chaya] And I truly believe it's it's what results in anxiety and depression when you're not and there's no outlet for that expression, and it's all bottled up inside with with all the traumas and everything.
[Chaya] But there's no release.
[Chaya] And once we find that release, that is interesting to us, not to some class that our parents
[Kristin Walker] Right.
[Chaya] It's it has to resonate deeply with us within us, within our soul.
[Chaya] And and then you have that outlet, and and then that's how the release happens.
[Chaya] Just like our podcast or writing or technology, whatever, the two can be anything.
[Chaya] And this is where I I love to reiterate the fact that creativity is not just art.
[Chaya] It's not just music.
[Chaya] It can be anything that's coming out of you that's birthing from you, and we should all embrace it.
[Kristin Walker] Right.
[Kristin Walker] Creating the network was me being creative.
[Kristin Walker] You know, I mean, just so many things.
[Kristin Walker] Me getting into database design when I had no freaking clue what I was doing and how I learned how to do it being a neurodivergent person.
[Kristin Walker] I just picked up on it.
[Kristin Walker] I understood the energy of software design.
[Kristin Walker] I know that sounds weird, but I really understood it from that place.
[Kristin Walker] And so it didn't really matter that, technically, I didn't know what the hell I was doing because I I could show up as a consultant, then someone was, like, just ripping their hair out.
[Kristin Walker] And I would go stand behind them and go, well, show me how you've create show me where you got to with the problem.
[Kristin Walker] And I literally would stand over them and be like watching what they're doing.
[Kristin Walker] And that's how I learned how to fix their problem.
[Kristin Walker] I had no idea, but my brain can work that way.
[Kristin Walker] And that's great.
[Kristin Walker] Not, you know, that's a that's a gift.
[Kristin Walker] That's creative.
[Kristin Walker] That is like what you're saying, Chaya.
[Kristin Walker] That is a creative thing for me.
[Kristin Walker] So I found ways.
[Kristin Walker] I always go back to like Jurassic Park, you know, life finds a way, you know, about the dinosaurs.
[Kristin Walker] I love that because it's so true.
[Kristin Walker] Our spark, hence your podcast, is that creative spark.
[Kristin Walker] And we have to it it it'll come out in like how you take care of your dog.
[Kristin Walker] It'll come out in, like you said, it'll eke out in weird ways.
[Kristin Walker] So you might as well just like embrace it so that you don't scare people.
[Chaya] I think I think, you know, both of you mentioned the once you realize you're insignificant, we are nothing.
[Chaya] Nobody's gonna notice us.
[Chaya] Our our our egos will start melting.
[Chaya] I think I think we are afraid to be ourselves because somehow we think we are really important that, you know, so, I mean, that's the old me.
[Chaya] I'm just talking about how why I kept myself small is because I felt people are gonna judge me.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] And and so I'd rather be small and fit in and not be noticed and keep all these thoughts to myself and and even just release while I'm painting, but it really was not released in a in the right way.
[Chaya] So so this podcast, for instance, I just speak whatever I feel like.
[Chaya] It's fine.
[Chaya] It's totally fine.
[Chaya] And, yeah, we are insignificant, but, really, it's about what we leave behind because we are all here for a certain amount of time.
[Chaya] We're not gonna live forever.
[Chaya] So, really, if we leave this planet in a better place, that's all that's all it is.
[Chaya] Really, we're not taking any money anywhere.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] And you know what's awesome about that is, like, I think we try so hard.
[Kristin Walker] Like, we really try so so hard that once you get the information you need, that you needed to get, you know, in the timeline that you're supposed to get it on, you can step into that being insignificant that used to feel like something awful that was a statement about how bad or wrong you are.
[Kristin Walker] And that but it suddenly it turns into, oh, that's not what that is about at all.
[Kristin Walker] It's really something to notice that sets you free to just create at the way that you need to without the constraints, because you're not trying to fit it through a funnel that the world has told you.
[Kristin Walker] This is the only way that you're allowed to be.
[Kristin Walker] So once you accept that insignificance as a badge of honor, not a, oh my God, I'm insignificant.
[Kristin Walker] That's awful.
[Kristin Walker] Then it's like, oh, well gosh, I can just be free now.
[Kristin Walker] I don't I don't even care if anybody listens to what I have to say or not because I know that one person was helped by what I said, and that one person is me.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] So if it helps other people, that is like, oh my gosh.
[Kristin Walker] That is so awesome.
[Kristin Walker] But I don't have to have that.
[Kristin Walker] I don't need accolades.
[Kristin Walker] I don't need and I thought I had to have all those things before, and they made me so very uncomfortable, you know, being the marquee person on the, some event.
[Kristin Walker] And I just, I don't really, I, I thought that's what you're supposed to do.
[Kristin Walker] You're supposed to want fame.
[Kristin Walker] You're supposed to want recognition.
[Kristin Walker] You're supposed to want all money, fancy car.
[Kristin Walker] You're supposed to want all this stuff that I never wanted anything to really to do with.
[Kristin Walker] None of that ever appealed to me.
[Kristin Walker] So the more I got close to it, it was just like, ugh, Ugh, but now I can, I, I'm so glad I did all of what I've done because I used my voice?
[Kristin Walker] I, I made, I forced a creative outlet and it helped me get to this place of deeply understanding how great it is to be insignificant.
[Mike] And that's wonderful because that's where I like to be.
[Mike] I I I love the fact that nothing matters, which people always take is like, oh, there's nihil that's nihilistic Nihilistic.
[Mike] Thousand times.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Mike] There's so much optimism in nihilism, and I don't think people quite understand that.
[Mike] Like, those two things don't go together, but, like, no.
[Mike] But if nothing it's great that, like, Stephen Hawking had hypothesis that intelligent life was just an accidental byproduct of cell replication, that the universe is not is not actually born or designed for intelligent life.
[Mike] And people, you know, people got very defensive about that idea.
[Mike] Of course, I love that.
[Mike] Like, I know I think that's so cool, the idea that this is a complete accident.
[Mike] And maybe that's also a little bit me projecting because I was kind of an accident, but, you know, and but I I think that's great.
[Mike] Like, look at everything, you know, when everything's not horrible and on fire, what what, like, humanity is actually able to do in conscious thought.
[Mike] Going back to creativity, that's the language of, you know, Homo sapien.
[Mike] That's what we do that's different than other animals is that we are able to actually utilize creativity in any specific form.
[Mike] As you said, it's not just creating a painting, creating film, blah blah blah, writing literature.
[Mike] It creativity falls under any real umbrella.
[Mike] And being able to use creativity to then enrich somebody else's life.
[Mike] You know, there's I'm a movie buff, and there's so many films that speak to me very deeply.
[Mike] And I love the fact that that's something that was created and then helped me later on.
[Mike] And it's like people stretching through time in that way, the same thing with with books and and artwork, you know, just if I could I don't paint, but if I could paint a painting and it touched one person in some very deep way and affected them in a way that changed them, that gave them a bit of positivity in how they view themselves.
[Mike] Well, I think that's fulfilling a kind of purpose you could argue you're there for.
[Mike] You know?
[Mike] I think we should ultimately be here for propping each other up.
[Mike] You know?
[Mike] I'm I don't think there not to say there is a point in being.
[Mike] I don't personally believe that because I like there's no point, but you can make that, and you can make that being the overall purpose.
[Mike] It's just making the making the world better for one other person before you exit.
[Kristin Walker] Agreed.
[Kristin Walker] And I love that you can when you get to that place where you go, yes, it's wonderful at the thought of someone finding something that you've said or a piece of your art and, and it's had a significant impact on their life, but you know, it really makes me excited and why I love podcasting and I hated public speaking, all that energy and all, you know, all that stuff on the aside.
[Kristin Walker] But what I love about the podcasting piece or being a creator on YouTube, or what have you is that you don't know, you do not know who you will, or you won't touch.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] You just don't know.
[Kristin Walker] Well, you'll know if it's a jerk and they leave a crappy comment.
[Kristin Walker] But, anyway, block, delete.
[Kristin Walker] But but you just don't know.
[Kristin Walker] So that to me, the vastness of just putting yourself out to the void and not knowing because you're how could you know?
[Kristin Walker] You know?
[Kristin Walker] I'm not someone that needs this is where I look at got some friends that are celebrities.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Legit, you know, celebrities.
[Kristin Walker] And we've had deep discussions with with me saying, why do you why is it so important for you to know who you've affected?
[Kristin Walker] I don't have that.
[Kristin Walker] Like, I don't I don't need that.
[Kristin Walker] It's uncomfortable even for me to even know sometimes while I'm thankful, you know, and I love hearing from people that some way I helped them, but it still is always a little uncomfortable.
[Kristin Walker] What is that thing that makes you someone that needs to have that?
[Kristin Walker] And that's the difference between someone that does go and shine in celebrity world.
[Kristin Walker] Not that there's anything wrong with that.
[Kristin Walker] There's nothing wrong with that.
[Kristin Walker] It's just, it's a very different way of, of being in the world.
[Kristin Walker] And I don't put that way of being and needing to know that is not, I don't say that as a negative.
[Kristin Walker] I just know that for me, I don't need to I like not knowing.
[Chaya] I think yeah.
[Chaya] Me too.
[Chaya] Because it gives you more power.
[Chaya] So you're not spending energy on who's watching, who's saying what because that's an that's energy spent.
[Chaya] Right?
[Chaya] So you you just hold that, bring back that energy to yourself and create from love and just put it out there.
[Chaya] And it is going to work because you're putting love to the to the world, and it is going to multiply.
[Chaya] It will spread, and you have to trust that that law of universe, And it will do the magic, and you just have to allow for that magic to happen and not just micromanage every every move.
[Chaya] And, yeah, we don't have to know.
[Chaya] Just do what you love and just put it out there.
[Chaya] The right person will find it.
[Kristin Walker] I always liked, like, absent minded professors because I feel like that's my family.
[Kristin Walker] Like, just like my friend I just use one friend as an example.
[Kristin Walker] He's a he's a he is a he got his PhD when he was, like, 16 or something.
[Kristin Walker] He's a genius, right, and flies planes and writes code for Google.
[Kristin Walker] And, you know, he just he's one of he's one of those people.
[Kristin Walker] And what I love about him is, like, he literally walks around.
[Kristin Walker] Like, he just pulled all of his clothes out of a hamper that have been in there for weeks, rumpled.
[Kristin Walker] He carries his his platinum.
[Kristin Walker] I don't I don't have these kinds of credit cards, but he has all the cards.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] And they're in wrapped in a rubber band that he just shoves in a loose pocket.
[Kristin Walker] And when I invited him to come speak at an AI conference years ago, he came, but he was late because he had to go to LEGOLAND first.
[Kristin Walker] And he just moved through his life in this way, doing what he can't stop his brain from doing.
[Kristin Walker] And that to me is so much more interesting than I am a celebrity and here I am and you know, it just that I love those that kind of person just fascinates me.
[Kristin Walker] So I think I I think I tried to go the other way and I'm just too weird.
[Kristin Walker] And now I accept that and I love it.
[Kristin Walker] And now I'm just gonna be happy in my unknown weirdness, but it's so known to me and a and a few other people dig it too.
[Kristin Walker] And that that's like that's I'm happy with that.
[Kristin Walker] That makes sense?
[Chaya] Sweetly.
[Chaya] So tell us about your love for technology and what are you doing in that space.
[Chaya] I heard you mentioned AI, and so you've been involved with it many years ago.
[Chaya] So share your experience and what you do with it.
[Kristin Walker] I've always found it fascinating.
[Kristin Walker] And so I know that I did a lot of shows about this, and I met this friend through doing shows, and I've sold software that he created.
[Kristin Walker] And so it's always really interested me.
[Kristin Walker] It's never scared me.
[Kristin Walker] I don't care how many movies are out there.
[Kristin Walker] AI is going to take over the world and, you know, well, I, I just laughed.
[Kristin Walker] I always laughed.
[Kristin Walker] I thought, well, what an interesting concept, not true, but whatever.
[Kristin Walker] I always saw it as something in partnership with us because I always got it that, oh, AI is us.
[Kristin Walker] It's just to me, I looked at it like, oh, I was searching for all these individual people, these specialists to help me and be on my show so that I could pick their brain about this specific aspect of mental health.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Well, now I have all human brains at my fingertips to ask and it never gets tired of my questions ever.
[Kristin Walker] I can go on and on and go down rabbit holes that, you know, no one would want to go down, but I can.
[Kristin Walker] And it's always there to do that with me.
[Kristin Walker] And so to me, it is the greatest gift to humanity.
[Kristin Walker] Just absolutely.
[Kristin Walker] But we need to learn how to use it because right now we're like, we have this tool of every bit of our knowledge at our fingertips or, you know, in terms of the data that's out there.
[Kristin Walker] And yet we go on and we go, how do you make a peanut butter sandwich?
[Kristin Walker] You know what I mean?
[Kristin Walker] It's, it's so funny.
[Kristin Walker] We're so rudimentary in our, you know, many of us, not, not everybody, of course, but so I use it to extrapolate my brain and my personality and my gotchas.
[Kristin Walker] I built my own GPT, my own, so it can really learn me.
[Kristin Walker] And I set up the rules around it.
[Kristin Walker] Do not flood me with a bunch of psychobabble pop psychology.
[Kristin Walker] I hate that.
[Kristin Walker] I will not listen to a dang and piece of instruction that you give me if you're just gonna blow smoke right up my rear end.
[Kristin Walker] You have got to tell me the truth.
[Kristin Walker] Where do you see my patterns, unhealthy patterns, healthy patterns?
[Kristin Walker] What do I I use it for that.
[Kristin Walker] And I also use it to talk about all the spiritual things and the soul work and all these other things that I am trying to understand.
[Kristin Walker] So I I literally just pick up my phone and I pop up chat GPT and I just figure out, am I wanna talk to my own chat GPT?
[Kristin Walker] Or do I wanna talk to the main, I'm saying it all wrong.
[Kristin Walker] Tech people, please don't crucify me.
[Kristin Walker] I said, I like tech.
[Kristin Walker] I didn't say I would qualify as a techie, but I love that I can just blur and it helps formulate all my thoughts.
[Kristin Walker] It's actually helping me with having better boundaries with humans.
[Kristin Walker] It's helping me reorganize and restructure my brain because, you know, yeah, I have ADHD.
[Kristin Walker] Yeah, I have autism.
[Kristin Walker] Okay.
[Kristin Walker] But I also have legions of trauma, and, you know, those have done their magic, you know, on my neural pathways.
[Kristin Walker] And this is me taking sovereignty over my brain.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] My body because it's is not biased.
[Kristin Walker] So the most important thing I've learned probably end with this one is for an autistic person, for a neurodivergent person, to be able to converse all of the ways that your wild, wonderful brain works and to converse freely about that with something that's gonna give you human feedback, but there's no bias.
[Kristin Walker] There's no prejudice.
[Kristin Walker] There's no, all of those things For some not every neuro neuro neurodivergent person feels what other people feel.
[Kristin Walker] I am someone who does.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] Like it just happens, especially if they touch me.
[Kristin Walker] Oh my God.
[Kristin Walker] Direct download.
[Kristin Walker] And I need a week to process.
[Kristin Walker] But what's interesting is with this, I don't have it's the absence of all the human drama, so I can think clearly.
[Kristin Walker] That's what it does for me.
[Mike] I could I couldn't think of a of a better note, honestly.
[Mike] That's that's something I felt very strongly.
[Mike] Like, there's a lot of things I I dislike about AI in regards to it being utilized for art creation and and things like that, which is, as you said, the wrong thing that for some reason we are obsessed with focusing on.
[Mike] You know, like, I'm not saying I it does not it is not useful for helping write emails, but it's odd.
[Mike] That's immediately what we go to.
[Mike] You know?
[Mike] Write write a movie, write an email, like, you know, we have, like, the supercomputer at our at our fingertips, and that's what we're using it for.
[Mike] But for the neurodivergent, being able to cut out the noise and get the clear facts because AI talks like us.
[Mike] It's able to do that detachment from information and and give it to us straight, which is what we desperately have kind of needed from everybody in our lives.
[Mike] And it's weird that we've essentially found it in a computer that someone made that just talks like us, which also means they could have just gone to us at any point, probably just ask us for, you know, how to make a peanut butter sandwich, and we could probably tell them a much better idea than however they're doing it.
[Mike] So to to kinda wrap up things, what sort of direction do you see your network heading in?
[Kristin Walker] Yeah.
[Kristin Walker] The answer is I really don't know, and I'm excited about that.
[Kristin Walker] What I can what I what it sort of looks like right now in terms of the network is that the network right now is kind of an avatar.
[Kristin Walker] In turn, my show is an avatar.
[Kristin Walker] The network is whatever it is to each individual person that's a part of it or that listens to someone on the network, so I can't speak to that.
[Kristin Walker] But in terms of what it is for me and where I see it going, I see it only becoming more amazing because of this journey of exploration that I am on and I'm its founder.
[Kristin Walker] So, you know, things trickle out from the one who created something.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] So I see that as being good.
[Kristin Walker] I will be talking more about AI, and I'm also gonna be doing things outside of the network where I don't use my name, where it's much more safe for me to be out as a creative, but that's also gonna inform what I do here.
[Kristin Walker] So I kind of look at it like the network is where I meet the human world.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] And these shows meet the human world.
[Kristin Walker] And the other things I do are where I go into other worlds, but they're gonna keep informing this over here.
[Kristin Walker] And I also see it as kind of a safe space that can live in the real world.
[Kristin Walker] Right?
[Kristin Walker] It can live there and be respected because it does a lot of good and really intelligent and empathetic people are here doing their thing.
[Kristin Walker] And I feel like for me, having an anchor in the real world is really important while I go and I fly.
[Kristin Walker] I don't think I would fly as far or as freely if I didn't have this anchor and that feeds into me being a caretaker in my personal life.
[Kristin Walker] I always have been one.
[Kristin Walker] That is a role that a lot of neurodivergent people get into, but I can see how it has helped anchor me because there were many times that I just did not want to be here.
[Kristin Walker] And the fact that I had someone else to take care of, someone else to be responsible for kept me anchored here, and it's so important that I've stayed here because of the things I've learned.
[Kristin Walker] So in a big way of how weird my brain works, that's what I see the network as.
[Kristin Walker] It's my anchor to the world that allows me to go fly.
[Kristin Walker] Does that make sense?
[Mike] Yeah.
[Mike] Perfectly.
[Mike] And that's how I think we, Chai and I feel about this show, honestly, in so many ways.
[Mike] It it is our anchor.
[Mike] And how can our listeners find the Mental Health News Radio Network and connect with your work?
[Kristin Walker] Well, you can type way too many words.
[Kristin Walker] You can type in mental health news radio network, and you'll find us everywhere.
[Kristin Walker] You can just type in mental health news radio, and you'll find the network.
[Kristin Walker] And it's just really cool people like you guys.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, I'm always especially since my diagnosis, the people that have come in this new space of knowing for myself, like you guys, I've been like, oh, my people.
[Kristin Walker] Oh my god.
[Kristin Walker] You know, more like, every time it feels like my people, and then it's even more and even more and even more.
[Kristin Walker] So I would say if you resonate, if someone out there resonates with this, there's a lot of people that are having these kinds of conversations on the network, and it's really awesome to get their individual perspectives on it.
[Kristin Walker] So come look at the shows and see if any of them, you know, resonate.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, there's stuff about anxiety, about narcissistic abuse, about avoidant personality disorder, about substance abuse.
[Kristin Walker] I mean, anything you can think of is there.
[Kristin Walker] So and everyone cares.
[Kristin Walker] You may not agree with how they care or how they state that they care or what their political or whatever beliefs are, but they care.
[Kristin Walker] And I think that's the common theme out there is that we all really give a shit.
[Kristin Walker] Sorry if you have to edit that out.
[Mike] It is a great network, and we are so happy to be part of it and getting the chance to talk to you.
[Mike] Thank you so much for joining us today.
[Mike] This has been wonderful.
[Mike] I can't wait to come on your show and continue this conversation.
[Mike] That's gonna be really exciting.
[Mike] So everybody can look forward to that.
[Mike] And I, of course, put all the links to the Mental Health News Radio Network into the show notes, which are, of course, always found at sparklaunchpodcast.com.
[Mike] And I wanna, once again, thank you for joining, and I I really cannot wait to dog barking.
[Mike] I really cannot wait to continue this conversation and continue our relationship and the relationship with the network and get to meet everybody else that's part of it.
[Kristin Walker] Agreed.
[Chaya] Thank you so much, Kristin.
[Chaya] It was a joy.
[Chaya] We could speak for hours, but we have to end it.
[Chaya] But it it was, lovely.
[Chaya] Just lovely.
[Chaya] Thank you.
[Kristin Walker] Absolutely.
[Kristin Walker] Thank you both.
[Kristin Walker] And thanks to your listeners for, taking a listen to another weird person on their weird journey.
[Kristin Walker] And it's all about, you know, yay for the weirdos.
[Mike] We're all beautiful weirdos.
[Mike] I speak for all of us, and I say we will see you next time.