Coherence-Bound: A Spiritual Framework for Understanding PDA Autism

What PDA autism reveals about energy, integrity, and the future we’re being asked to build.

For a long time, I’ve needed a new language to explore neurodivergence.

I can speak in terms of diagnoses, DSM-5-isms, biochemical pathways, advocacy, identity, nervous systems, neurotransmitters, you name it. I can and I do. But I find that things really come to life when I speak in the terminology of spirit.

Architecture, blueprint, field, resonance. These are the terms that light me up.

So, with that said, I wanted to introduce the spiritual framework I’ve been using to better understand and support my autistic son.

For five years now, I’ve known my child fits the profile of what’s called “PDA autistic.” I’ve read everything I can find about PDA and have embraced many of the supports: low-demand living, declarative language, interest-based learning, co-regulation, autonomy…all of it.

I’m grateful for the information out there and to all the advocates who made sure there was a place for parents like me to land. But still, all the videos, articles, emails, courses, and other PDA information I’ve consumed has felt like crumbs to the rich and whole experience of living beside it.

In my search for a fuller understanding, I needed something beyond demand avoidance, nervous system dysregulation, and drive for autonomy. I needed a why. And a language that could hold the why. That’s how this spiritual framework came to be.

Let’s start here. Autistic architecture is beautiful.

While the media’s busy portraying autism like it’s nothing more than a condition to be accommodated (or worse, overcome), an accidental switching on of genes, or (perhaps more harmfully) an epidemic resulting from yucky environmental toxins, autistic people themselves, and the people who love them, know there’s something much more beautiful at play.

In my son’s presence, I feel more alive.

My heart opens when he’s around.

His talent for reading unseen energy fascinates me.

Watching him create in his unique, non-linear fashion is a marvel.

His integrity and faithfulness to his own truth are unmatched.

Yes, his differences are challenging, but they are also revolutionary. It’s the way he was designed. On purpose.

In fact, this is the basis of the framework. This is the framework. All neurodivergent fields are beautifully and purposefully built on unique architecture.

This is similar to saying our nervous systems are “wired” differently—but if spiritual language resonates with you as it does with me, we get to expand from here. We are just getting started.

Having a unique field architecture means that the soul of a neurodivergent person plugs into physical reality through a distinct structural pattern, a different geometry of embodiment. There’s no difference at the soul level. A soul is a soul. We all carry the same light. But the way that light condenses into matter—enters time, takes on sensation, moves through language, identity, and space—diverges.

And it diverges with purpose.

Autistic ways of being are not accidents. And they’re not pathologies. They’re gateways into new ways of being and new forms of consciousness. Even new human capacities.

Not the actual geometry. Just an illustration of the concept. But interestingly, scientists see something similar when they look at brain connectivity.

The Coherence-Bound Architecture

I am not PDA autistic myself. But after almost a decade of living with my son, interacting with his field (and sharing a field when he grew inside me and drank from my body), I have come to know PDA intimately. Here’s what I’ve observed.

PDA architecture is coherence-bound. For the PDA field, coherence is the most important thing. Sacrificing coherence for too long equals death. And when the field does temporarily lose coherence (inevitable in this world) it has no choice but to fight for its life.

What is coherence?

Coherence is when all parts of you are aligned. Body, emotions, thoughts, field and soul are all moving in the same direction. No part of you is being left behind or silenced to keep the peace.

Coherence is what allows the soul, the highest self, to stay in the driver’s seat and guide your life. When a coherent person says yes, it is a soul-yes. They mean it. And they don’t have trouble saying no, either. Even as the world around them moves and shifts, demanding they bend and shrink, they do not. Their divine signal stays intact.

For most people, coherence gets disrupted early in life. Our fields become distorted. We’re taught to smile when we’re uncomfortable and say thank you when we don’t mean it. Hide how we feel in order to make others more comfortable and fit in.

Mask.

And for neurotypical fields, this kind of dissonance is tolerable. Barely even registers most of the time. But for coherence-bound fields, it is unbearable.

PDAers are built on an architecture that will crumble under prolonged dissonance. That’s because it’s designed to be loyal to truth above all else.

A neurotypical person who feels pressured to suck up to their in-laws or work a job they hate may feel annoyed, and may even show it, but it will be subtle.

Not so for a coherence-bound person. When too much dissonance enters their field, they are designed to go code red. The soul pulls back, the field fragments, the nervous system fights, flees, freezes, or fawns for survival. That’s when meltdown often occurs. And if meltdown (a disruptive but sacred clearing and rebalancing) is not tolerated, then shutdown will soon follow.

I’ve observed other fascinating traits of the coherence-bound field, too.

If I’m being honest, I think my son will be mostly indifferent to this chart when he’s old enough to understand it. He’s not interested in being defined by others or told who he is. His sense of identity is always shifting (see row 4).

Still, based on my deep attunement to him, and everything I’ve learned from other PDAers and advocates, I think this chart offers a helpful synthesis.

Toward a world that honors coherence

What kind of world would coherence-bound people thrive in?

One where authenticity is more important than obedience.

Where saying no is seen as self-trust, not defiance.

Where systems bend to meet the person, not the other way around.

In that world, we wouldn’t have to teach our children to mask in order to belong.
They would be received exactly as they are. Whole, sovereign, vibrationally precise.
And not only would they thrive…they would lead.

Because coherence-bound people are not here to fit into this world. They’re here to show us how to reshape it. Rebuild from truth. Refuse distortion so completely that something new has to arise.

While other “profiles” of autism arise from blueprints that carry their own different forms of intelligence, corrections, and expansion, PDA brings coherence to the broken world. It arrives with one demand: that we stop pretending and distorting ourselves. That we finally learn how to live in truth.

In future installments of this series, I’ll explore:

• what it means to repair the field after disconnection or dysregulation

• why so many coherence-bound kids are born to late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD parents

• how to support PDAers by witnessing them from new heights

• why meltdowns are the most sacred thing happening in your family’s nervous system.

If any of that resonates, I hope you’ll stay with me.

I believe we’re both remembering something ancient and building something new.

Together.

With love,

Molly