I learned the hard way that motivation isn’t something you can take for granted. There’s no question you can be humbled by waking up & realizing your drives & interests don’t just come naturally to you.
That stretch in my life when I was bed-bound was scary- probably the most bc of things I always HAD taken for granted: waking up & thinking abt what I had to do for the day, recognizing I needed to shower, having hunger pangs & a desire for certain breakfast food, escaped me. It was like I was a blank slate, w no direction.
I remember describing it to ppl as going on one of those haunted house rides at an amusement park, where you sit & are taken thru the pitch-black experience, not in control of where you’re moving, or how fast…at the mercy of what might lunge at you from out of the dark.
No doubt that was a scary time, & w/o question I realize how lucky I am not to experience that, daily, as my healing journey has progressed. That said, since we all know healing isn’t linear, there’s def a day here & there, even days, plural, where the natural drives & motivations are just lacking. Could be for something specific & contained, like food/hunger, or could be a general lack of drives for most anything.
I’ve been fortunate that the last 3 yrs or so, as it comes to these types of posts, motivation has just been there. This yearning to attack this puzzle of MH that our society still is far from figuring out. Life puzzles motivate me. I enjoy helping.
But on days like today, I can read all the articles in the world…can have all the lived experiences of friends & community members in the world shared w me, & just not have anything click that makes me WANT to write. And bc I write these posts stream of consciousness, it makes penning them near impossible.
That’s why today, I wanted to share that if YOU push yourself to go thru the motions when the natural motivation for ANYTHING just isn’t there, it’s an incredible testament to your inner strength.
Maybe it’s a daily step count…or going to the gym…or eating healthy…or doing yoga…isn’t it amazing you’d run through a brick wall to do it at other times, & then you have a day/days where it’s the last thing that registers for you. It’s not even that you don’t WANT to do it/it feels like work. Instead, it literally does NOT register.
Just know if you feel/have felt that, & you’ve been able to make yourself get up & do it anyway – even if it’s at 10% of your norm, you’re a badass. We take motivation for granted…but we shouldn’t. It takes a beautiful symphony of biology & chemistry in our bodies for us to feel motivated. When you can train yourself to go through the motions w/o it, celebrate that- you’re on the quickest path towards getting those natural drives back!
