What makes you 'you'?

Looking back to my latest articles, I realised I am not the positive and bubbly person I used to be. I’d like to blame the pandemic but, to be fair, I’d rather be a bit ‘off’ than having a possibly fatal respiratory infection.

Not that I’ve ever been positive and bubbly since the age of twelve, but you know what I mean. It’s like dementors are sucking happiness from anyone that ventures far enough into the city.

The hard part isn’t carrying on, that’s easy when you’re on auto-pilot. The challenge is finding the motivation to get back to being your most authentic self despite all adversities.

My counsellor asked me: what makes you ‘you’? And I’d like to ask you the same question.

Pre-COVID, what were the things that you looked forward to? What made you feel productive and satisfied? Was there anything that you did for yourself, outside your ‘must do’ routine?

All of my answers indicated a sheer desire to escape, feel different, and to share that experience with others.

Hello extroverts!

It took me several months to grasp that I’m lacking the motivation to dress-up, put on a glittery face of makeup and a full fairy gown, especially because there’s nobody else around but my pets looking at me with their tilted heads.

Some people find their inner balance by cleaning and tidying up, following the motto: tidy desk tidy mind. Being organised would make them feel better equipped for whatever life might throw at them, knowing exactly where everything is and being in control of their own environment.
Others feel their most productive selves when being creative. The ability to put into art or to craft emotions and ideas has an undeniably therapeutic value. It’s like letting out all the bad and trapping it into an object or to amplify the good and making it exist even outside our minds.

For others it’s driving, or doing physical activity, meditating, following baking instructions, going into nature and doing some earthing, reading, you name it!

The counsellor mentioned something about motivation, and I did some digging. Did you know there are two kinds of motivation? The first kind of motivation is defined as ‘towards’ something you want, and the second is ‘away from’ something you don’t want. 

The overall action is to evolve, or to simply ‘do-the-thing’, but the implication of the motivation ‘towards’ is to have a vision, a goal, and to perform all necessary steps in order to reach it. For example: baking, crafting…

When the motivation is ‘away from’ an unwanted situation or feeling, it doesn’t really matter where the end goal is, as long as it’s something different. This might be the right trigger for those who play video-games or exercise as an escape.

Of course, coaching snobs may argue that ‘away’ is not a direction and this won’t be a reliable source of motivation. The journey to take you away from an unpleasant starting point may not be sustainable in the long run and may even make you lose track of what it feels like to be satisfied.

Given the lack of time and opportunities available for me to do the things that I love and make me feel good, I had to really listen to my counsellor brainstorming and jam all of it into a bite-size concentrate of motivation.

To be social in isolation, obviously, I needed to find like-minded people online. So, I reached out to my friends and joined online communities like it’s the 2000s.

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To play with make-up and pretend my eyelids are exotic butterflies I called make-up challenges. Give me a theme or a number and let’s come up with a look to share on said communities.

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To escape and create fantastic scenarios in my head, in absence of Improv theatre and role-play, I am discussing possible D&D characters with my friends and listening to strategy podcasts on the topic.

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The frustrating part, for me, is that all these options were always there, yet it took me months to truly see them and understand the importance of what I thought were small things. 

Is this ‘just like it used to’? No, not at all. Is this giving me something to look forward to during the weekend? Yes indeed.

All in all, I consider this a win. 

See? A positive article for once!



Image: via