🌱 Welcome to By UnCommon Design: Your First Step Home
A gentle landing place for moms raising neurodivergent kids—who are quietly ready to remember who they are. Your dreams don’t expire when your child gets diagnosed... The UnCommon Design Inbox Circle
🛑 STOP: Did you read the About page?“A gentle landing place for moms raising neurodivergent kids—who are quietly ready to remember who they are. Your dreams don’t expire when your child gets diagnosed... Design a happier life that feels like your own, even in the DEEPEST SEASONS of mothering as an autism mom.”
You can listen to my Welcome Message below:
💁♀️ Who Am I?
I'm Cheniece Patrick: a solopreneur, new hobbyist podcaster, Tarot certified attuned Reiki Master, and proud Mother to my two amazingly pretty toddlers on the autism spectrum. Like many special needs parents, I've experienced the particular kind of isolation that comes from navigating a path few others understand: The grief that lives alongside profound love. The guilt that accompanies wanting something for yourself beyond caregiving…
After months of experiencing emotional tumult and a sticky depression during which I barely knew myself, I re-started my writing practice as a lifeline… as a way to make sense of the complexities that motherhood, particularly of the special needs variety, brings to the table.
📚 What You'll Find Here
UnCommon Design isn't filled with picture-perfect parenting answers or strictly inspirational platitudes from a prayer devotional. Instead, you'll discover:
✔️ A free download of The Survival Mode Exit Strategy Workbook - A gentle, practical guide to help you start stepping out of survival mode and into a life that feels more like your own.
✔️ Bi-weekly Letters That Meet You Where You Are - No platitudes. No empty inspiration. Only grounded storytelling, honest reflection, and practical wisdom from someone walking this path alongside you: a mom of two autistic special needs toddlers who’s choosing intentional living even in the thick of it.
Typical issues contain features such as:
An identity theme (Joy, Rest, Boundaries, etc.)
A grounding story
A journal prompt or reflection PDF
A simple self-return ritual
An easy reclamation practice/exercise/challenge
Link to the Anonymous Share Box
✔️ Audio Diaries - Podcast-style episodes where I share the unfiltered highs, lows, and revelations of autism motherhood. Think: raw, honest, and deeply personal. Listen to my unfiltered audio diaries capturing the 2AM doubts, the guilt-ridden confessions, and the unexpected breakthroughs worth celebrating.
✔️ Direct Support Line - Feel free to send a message to ask me anything about Motherhood, burnout, identity, and self-care, and I’ll answer in an exclusive post or chat reply.
✔️ Subscriber Group Chat Lounge – Engage in a private (non-social media) community space for deeper conversations.
✔️ Connection Without Pressure - This isn’t a bustling community space demanding your participation… It’s connection at your own pace, in your inbox, where you can show up fully or simply receive. Both matter here.
🗃️ Section Topics
Assignments, Audio Diary, Diary, Events & Replays, Health & Wellbeing, Home & Family, Inner Circle, Magick, Membership, Podcast, Resource, Self Studio, Soulful Spirit, The Village & Society, Video, Voice Notes, Work & Craft
👉 Start Here: Essential Reads
If you're brand new, these pages and posts capture the essence of what UnCommon Design aims to be:
💭 The Philosophy
Mothers like us deserve better than what’s out there currently:
Most parenting support is either too clinical, too toxic-positive, too hustle-driven, or completely disconnected from our reality of raising neurodivergent children (while also trying to maintain our own identity).
I wanted to create something that I needed myself: something human, spiritual, practical, and sustainable.
NOT a program you have to complete. NOT a course you’ll feel guilty about not finishing.
But a steady, nourishing presence. A place where you can grow slowly, softly, with others who understand…
The UnCommon Design Inbox Circle is my way of saying:
You deserve a life that feels like yours. You deserve support that actually meets you. You deserve a community that gets it.
And now, you have one…
Through the ecosystem of support here:
You will transition from depletion to deep nourishment.
You will move from feeling lost in the role of “autism mom” to being rooted in your identity.
You will shift from guilt-ridden self-abandonment to grounded self-advocacy.
You will transform from burned out to lit-up, as moments of genuine joy, rest, and ease become woven into the fabric of your daily life.
✍️ A Personal Note
Simply said, I created this space because I needed it for myself, and desperately so. On my days spent feeling the most lost that I have ever been, I searched for other voices that could articulate my particular ache without sugarcoating it, while still holding space for the hope that exists all around…
If you've felt invisible in these same struggles, or if you've ever questioned whether you'll find joy again amid the therapies and advocacy and endless responsibilities, you're in the right place.
This isn't just a newsletter. It's a lifeline, a community, and the gentlest reminder that even in your most overwhelmed moments, you still exist. Your dreams matter. Your identity matters.
