How do you get motivated to front while building a selfhood?

[mackerelgray]

This is something I've been dealing with for a while, so I'm sending it out for peer advice - how do you get motivated to front while building a selfhood, like opinions and interests and things you enjoy for recreation or other reasons to use your body, rather than habitually being a backseat driver?

It's frustrating to be a person, to know you're a person, but just not have a lot of reasons to be yourself in front of other people. I've likened it to depression before, because it feels fairly similar in the "lacking interest in daily activities" field, except you don't really have pre-existing hobbies to feel uninterested in. I've been around in our daily life before, but it's usually for the typical daily grind or talking to friends about something. I do like a good podcast, but again, I usually don't feel up to fronting and sharing my thoughts on them, and the less that I front to have opinions on something, the fewer opinions I'll have, it's a whole vicious cycle of inactivity.

If anyone else has dealt with this, sorry to hear it! Here's hoping we can crowdsource some ideas for Wanting To Exist More!

--Gavin Reed-Machina (he/him)

Comments

[gossamer_musings]

The first thing that I have to ask is: what do you think the mental/emotional/etc barrier is that's keeping you from fronting? It sounds like you have an idea of what you would, ideally, want to do, but there's something else getting in the way.I could be off-base, but it might be worth exploring the depression analogy a little more.

I think the first thing you could do is sit down and think about what you do in your other life. Are there any clues as to what you might enjoy spending your time doing? You can pair this with brainstorming a huge list of hobbies and interests and just trying some. See what you think. Write down your thoughts.

Another idea would be to reflect on what Jude and Max are interested in, and see if you can spend time with them while they pursue it. You may not like it, but that's fine. The point is to scope out what your interests could be! And any information is useful in the pursuit of it. You could further try this with other friends.

Once you have some idea of what you could be interested in, try and find communities for it! Talk about what you're learning with friends, talk about it online, journal about it. Whatever you need to do.

You are/were a detective, right? Maybe start with some murder mysteries (books, games), puzzles, or learn about forensic science, or the evolution of the detective as an archetype? From there, if that isn't to your taste, try reflecting on the aspects you did enjoy. Do you enjoy meticulous problem solving? Or historical analysis? Physical input? Or do you prefer mental stimulation? Try other things that come to mind that relate with what you did enjoy.

Finally, please don't be discouraged that you haven't found something you're interested in yet! It sucks. It sucks to feel like less of a person. What I've done in the past is to try fronting every day to do one thing, whatever it is. Switch it up if you like. Do the dishes one day, draw the next, or go for walks. Experiment in the kitchen, and make yourself a fun little drink. Explore the environment around you and make it yours. Remember that you are a person, just someone struggling to learn about yourself. Spend time with your others, even if you don't feel like you have anything to say.

[mackerelgray]

Hey Pax! Gonna answer these in sections:

what do you think the mental/emotional/etc barrier is that's keeping you from fronting?

First off, I did write this post yesterday to force myself to Do Something in front, and processing the weird anxiety about Having Opinions is pretty productive! https://mackerelgray.dreamwidth.org/11028.html

and then beyond that, I think it's a feedback loop of "I don't really have things to DO when I front" -> "fronting is literally not interesting" -> "Jude and Max have quite a few things they like doing" -> "they automatically front for entertainment" - and some part of it probably is just us generally being Very Stressed with medical school and all that, but also that's not keeping Jude and Max from having fun with things, so it's gotta be something else making it hard for me :P

Are there any clues as to what you might enjoy spending your time doing?

going down a whole hobby list and picking things that I remember/vibe with (and why we're not doing them, if we don't)

Probably Doable

• running with some sorta music (havent quite worked up the endurance for Running yet, but actually pretty good idea? we do have this in bookmarks https://c25k.com/ and could also put on a podcast)
• sketching (we DO draw on paper sometimes, Max just keeps fronting automatically for it :V I did draw my cats though!)
• reading (well. we do read. i just havent picked something specific im interested in)
• cooking? (frankly i dont think im that great at it, but hey, same skill level here lmao)
• video games (i would play more Hades if our hands didn't hate it, and more Disco Elysium if our computer graphics didn't hate it)
• coffee trivia (entirely possible to fill my brain with useless coffee facts again)

Probably Not?

• magic the gathering (max does not know the rules, and not knowing the rules is vaguely demoralizing)
• basketball (don't have equipment or people to play with, Max does not know the rules and therefore I also dont lmao)
• soccer (same as above :P)
• fight club (aka fucking around with wrestling) (same as above, lack endurance, sorry half of these are just Moving Around way more than you max lmao)
• ping pong (i kinda sucked at it) (dont have a ping pong table or people to play it with)
• skating (dont have equipment, havent learned it, and why is this expensive?)
• guitar (haven't learned it, and we dont have one!)

So out of all those, the top section are the most possible given limited time, energy, and money! Maybe listening to music if I can't play it? Really, I do have a bunch of interests I remember, but Max doesn't have the knowledge base for them and we'd really need to get out more for most of em :P

You are/were a detective, right?

Yep! unfortunately detective work isn't especially stimulating as a hobby because i remember it as work, and i did like the analytics of it but you know work, it feels tedious and was definitely kinda burning out by the time i checked out. and the same puzzling-things-out mental stimulation niche is being filled by medicine, which theoretically would be cool but you know, Work and academic guilt. you can't win!

and thanks a lot for the encouragement, it helps <3 i keep thinking about building up a fronting habit and then i don't commit, but i guess the best time is now! start out small and figure something out

[chameleons3]

I didn’t get a choice not to front. Once the unfolding got to a certain point, I’d just get pulled out. Things happening would ping somatic reminders for me. Or pull my interest. Deciding to ignore it was not an ability I had. I was fronting whether I liked it or not.

It did give me clues about what was interesting or important. What guided me. What I was afraid of. What I had to process.

Wish I had more ideas for you.

[gze]

You've already gotten a lot of really solid advice here! We don't have a lot more to add except that the 'getting started' part (in our experience) is so often the hardest thing. It takes a lot of energy for an engine to turn over and get started, right? But once it's going it's easier to stay in motion, laws of physics etc etc. That's one thing some of us really struggle with, getting started/building the habit and we don't have the best answers on how to deal with that but some things we've tried...

• if the urge strikes, just give ourself(ves) the permission to do it. Stop thinking about it and just do it!
• sometimes reminding ourself(ves) that 'hey, you might not feel motivated to do it now but you'll feel better once you're actually doing it' can help, like with exercise or going outside. Doesn't always work but sometimes it does!
• or all else fails, sometimes someone else in the system doing metaphorical Inner World dragging by the collar, haha

Hope that helps! :3

-Z +etc.

(PS, since you mentioned ping-pong we couldn't help but post a link to PONGS which isn't quite the same thing but it's still fun to play with for a bit!)