Dialogue with Sane forum Forumites

Hi @chookmojo

Thanks for sharing your family history and your MI history on the other thread.

Yes I was also struck by how much my brother and I tried to look after our mother and my biological children tried to look after me. Unfortunately my mum sibling's were pretty quick to dump "their olds" and spend all their time feathering their own nests to the point it made me sceptical about Home Beautiful and other female interests.

I was reading an ethologist ... Bowlby ... re animal behaviour ... it seems to be about reciprocal altruism ... but how far should it be pushed ??? ... to deny the ability of children to be mature, responsible and/or loving has tended to spawn some very immature outlooks in latest generations ... where one child drain lots of attention from many adults ... whereas in the older days it was more about sharing and observing others and realising we were all in it (life) together ...

I am glad you dont use "bad mum" or "bad dad" or "bad self" descriptors. Over-simplifications dont tend to help. People are complex and their social circumstances are usually complex too. Their is usually good and bad in us all. Sounds like it was generations of struggling for your family (like mine) which we need to be able to remember with some dignity for all involved even tho the story you have described was so damaging for you.

I think it does help us all to talk about these things rather than staying stuck at label and meds only conversations ... it helps me anyway. I believe context counts for so much so I want to know more about a person than just terse dialogues ... this is is great thread.

isnt @PeppiPatty great at drawing people out and having them confide in her... even when she may not always make sense ... I feel her intuitive side is usually working hard. I get "ga ga" at times. We are rational beings but there is usually a bit of spice in it to make things interesting.

Cheers

@chookmojo I too have read your history and appreciate your openness and intelligent responses. I'm struck by the stamina and perseverence of your journey and wonder do you have any thoughts on motivation and how to stimulate it. I seem to have been fighting a big uphill battle with motivation from childhood, relating to trauma at home and social anxiety at school I think. This has continued through adulthood and goes on still. I have achieved things despite this but my successes have been mostly short-lived and dotted with breakdowns. Is the answer always really 'just do it'? That hasn't worked very well for me so far. I am hoping at the moment for sustainable change rather than this up and down kind of road I've been on all my life. Do you or anyone here have any thoughts for me on this?

@Appleblossom

Yes @PeppiPatty is fantasic a drawing people out and really lisening and thinking about what you say. I tend to get embarrassed when I can't work out what someone means, but I am am learning here that it is ok to justy say, 'Hey I didn't follow that, can you clarify?' It helps to keep[ in mind that I am always happy to try another way of explaining something myself, and to remember that most people would rather you asked so they can be understood, rather than skimmed over or ignored.

And it is very interesting to have these kinds of conversations. Forums by their nature tend to be rather repetetive, it's great when things go off the beaten track.

Hey @Mazarita,

Ooooh you have opened a can of worms here - this has been a pet subject of mine for years as I am not a terribly moptivated person - well at least not in the classic sense - and I have read a LOT of things and tried them all out over the years.

So there will be a LOT of info. Probably over a couple of posts!

First things first. In pop-psychology there is a huge emphasis on making goals to move towards - however that fails to uitlise two other very strong moptivation patterns, namely move away from and move against. Everyone has preferences or 'natural' leanings to which motivation style works best for them, and it can vary depending on your current state, and the context, so narrowly focusing on just one way can leave you short.

So waht is the difference?

Imagine for a moment you are standing in the middle of a large room, next to me. I f I say "Move 3 paces away from me" you have a full 360 degree range of possibilities to choose form, you could go in any direction and achive the objective.

If instead I say "Take three steps towards any door" your directional choices will be more limited. And if I say "Take 3 steps towards the nearest door" your direction is even more clear.

This is the big difference between move away goals and move towards goals, moving towards is much more focused and can stop you from a lot of needless meandering.

It's the difference between saying "I want to stop being so lazy" and saying "I want to walk 10000 steps a day" - in the first example you could have almost infinite ways of "not being lazy" in the second, the action you need to take is very clear. It is understandable that move towards goals became very popular.

However if you are naturally someone who prefers to operate from a 'move away' perspective the problem is that walking 10000 steps per day is not nearly as compelling as 'not being lazy' so the danger is that you won't take the steps and will continue to think about "not being lazy", or get distracted by one of the many other ways you could define "not being lazy" and so scatter your efforts about till there is not much to show for it, then you might get discouraged.

The other downside to "move away" is that you have to get kind of close to the thing you want to avoid in the first place. and you can end up drifting back there until you cross the threshold and notice that once again you are too close.

So a good strategy is to get a "propulsion sytem" whereby you identify both what you are moving away from AND what you are moving towards and link those things together - and it is really important that what you are moving towards is genuinely compelling. A lot of times we try to take on 'should' goals that we feel like we 'should' achieve, but which we aren't personally engaged with - or maybe we have a preconceived idea of how to go about it that just dioesn't work for us, instead of being open to other ideas that might work better.

To be successful it is more effective to make sure that what you are moving towards is something you personally truly want, somethiong you feel really congruent about, something that you feel compelled by, and that the move towards goal works with your move away from goal, and that you don't get too rigid about how to get from A to B.... or rather P to D (next post is aboput that).

Oh I almost forgot - move against, also known as the "Eff you!" factor. That's the one where you are highly motivated to prove someone or something wrong, to push back against on a limitation that has been imposed. It's a little related to being competetive and can be a powerful motivator!

@PeppiPatty

Dad's soppyness is partly to do with getting perspective as he became older, and a lot to do with becoming more infirm. He has had debilitating pain for many years, is now profoundly deaf, going blind and has Parkinsons. He is becoming very scared and recognising his own mortality and wanting to connect more, even with his own sister who he had always hated.

Is my brother still grieving? I don't know. I do grief very differently than any one else I know, and am not at all communicative about it so we have never talked about it. It certainly hit him very much harder than it hit me at the time.

I think my MI has changed over time and become more manageable, I do find it easier to not have much to do with family as it is too stressful, it adds another burden and so everything sort of gets a small degree worse.

Dad doesn't trigger me, but my brother does (though nowhere near as much as he used to). As the only way I get to see my dad is when my brother drives me up (a 9 hour round trip) I find that pretty hard going and it usually knocks me about for a bit.

Motivation depends on so many internal and external factors. There are needs to be met and desires and wants. I get all Ericsonian ... and talk hierarchies of need ...

@chookmojo you are very clear about pop psychology and some of its limits ... I bet that NLP was very helpful to you. I enjoy reading it a bit here and there and did similar stuff in EST type courses in my early 20s.

My brother was heavily into achieving goals and all the positive thinking under the sun ... I have the capacity to be competitive but its not a big part of me ... Mostly I am trying to figure what the game actually is .. or which one should I play, rather than worry about winning ... if I focus on winning ...fear overwhelms me ... mostly I am ok with being an 'also ran' and meandering ... social harmony and co-operation are more important to me.

I find the whole 10,000 step thing a turn off ... (I realise it is just an example) and digital devices for the counting ... I did lots of counting when I went to the gym ... so now I am back to movement being an organic part of who I am rather than a discipline. I do odd movement workshops rather than go all out at the gym now ...I have had too many old ladies put the "laziness" number on me when they had no idea how hard I was actually working ... I want to garden ... to clean ... to walk ... to dance ... as needed and as I feel ....not count steps.

I used to get antsy when people in my choir made too big a deal about counting in music ... its odd but I would say that is only for people who didnt do their maths homework ... I did mine ....so ... I just want to feel the music. I'd say ... you can count but dont tell me to count. I felt offended that music was reduced to numbers.

Sometimes excessive goal setting can be empty ... even when we reach them ... so we lose motivation about choosing new goals ... I have been concerned a bit about my own lack of motivation ... but as I have so many bits of paper I have been looking at life in other ways... I think that I have been quietly consolidating ... drawing my energy inwards ... watching with interest what is unfolding outside.

Life purposes can be tricky. Some people feel clear about core values and directions from early on whilst others dont ... I have often been partly clear ... if that makes sense ... maybe I knew I was on the right track but didnt know where the track was going.

@chookmojo and @Appleblossom thanks for the thoughtful replies to the question of motivation. I want to think more about what you have said.

Anne, @PeppiPatty, as you suggested, I have started writing about my childhood, taking my time with it. More later.