A Simple Guide on Becoming Yourself

By Panchiko (PR;) of Various Artists
on behalf of the Nothing Girl Alliance

Edited by Miku (MK;) and Holly (HP;)

Introduction

Chances are, if you're reading this, you're:

This guide was written with these kinds of folks in mind, but can be used by anyone if found helpful.

This guide focuses on building the simple parts of what makes someone a full(er) person, and doesn't bother with labels such as gender, orientation, role, or any introject labels. I believe that the scramble to take up labels rather than discovering selfhood doesn't help very much in the long run when it comes to general identity, as a person is much more than their labels.

In this guide, we'll go over:

Thank you for being here, commitment, and time.

I wouldn't be the first to say that discovering and creating yourself can be a daunting task. If you've had a longer history, it might be a big step to finally decide to become yourself. It might seem scary, as change often is. In spite of fear, I thank you for being here to take the walk through identity lane with me. Really, I mean it! I was in a similar position to you once, and I write this guide for people like you and me.

Becoming yourself is a commitment, and you must set aside time to work on it. The work unfortunately doesn't happen overnight, and being yourself is a choice that takes practice. You might be tempted to stop working on yourself when things become awkward or uncomfortable, but no progress is made that way. Practice when you have time, as frequently as your system and living situation allows.

You might have to create a schedule. If possible, try to at least take an hour to yourself to work on what I outline here. For larger systems, this time might be shorter, or more few-and-far-between. Try to negotiate time with your other system members if this is the case.

Tethering yourself

The first few little steps are about creating a basis that you are identifiable by. These traits are (oftentimes) self-appended, and are preferably that way so that they are purely personal to you. Your unique attributes can be then used to help you stick to front better. Fronting may take some practice for you, so don't shy away from practicing.

Name

It goes without saying that you should pick a name that feels like you. Try not to let others sway your name choice, as it is possibly the most personal attribute of yourself that you share with others. You're always free to change your name later if the first one you pick doesn't fit, and you're also completely free to have several names!

Some ideas, for those stuck on naming:

You can have others try names on you, or you can use online tools like the Pronoun Dressing Room to aid you with this.

Internal signature

This idea comes from this piece of writing by Feasting With Ghosts, which I highly recommend you check out for a longer explanation. This part of this guide is a shorter, simpler version.

If you don't already have something of the sort, try to create imagery to represent yourself. This can be words (like nouns, adjectives, verbs OR like poems, haikus, prose), pictures, music, sounds, textures, scents, aesthetics, places, pretty much anything! It might be worth it to create some sort of artpiece, moodboard or collage of your signature to refer back to later. You don't have to be super picky with this initially, you can choose anything that resonates with you to any degree. Don't worry about how this may appear to others, this is solely your own unless you choose to share it.

Creating an internal signature can help you anchor yourself to front, or bring you to front when invoked. This is incredibly useful to have if you're currently not one who fronts very often, or for very long - having strong associations can improve fronting time, which you can then use to have time to build yourself.

While helpful, this might not work for everyone. You may be more interested in learning how to voluntarily switch by other means instead!

Building yourself

This is the meat of the operation, and what you might find yourself sinking a lot of time into for a while. You might worry about this being an egocentric thing to do, but in reality every person on Earth spends their "me-time" working with themselves and thus creating themselves further. It just might look a little different for them than it does for you! :)

Your personality

What kind of person do you want to be?

You might have an idea of how you wish you acted, or how you wish you could act. Truth be told, you're most likely already there, you just need to get into the groove of acting in the way that feels most "you."

If you're not sure, you can look to other people for inspiration. What do you like about the way your peers act? Your favorite content creators, artists, or characters? Think about the traits they embody that you'd like to have yourself.

Take some time to write down some personality traits you think you already have. This can be as many or as few as you'd like. Try to be easy on how you define your personality; don't be too overly critical of yourself. Then, write the personality traits you "desire" to have: as few or as many as you'd like, but I'd encourage you to write as many as you can so you can get a good idea of what you want.

Sometimes, you might need to leave behind old traits to make room for new ones, especially if old and new conflict. If you believe it to be in your best interest, allow it to happen. You might have some growing pains from this, or it may feel awkward at first. Trust the process with these things.

On the other hand, if the traits you embody now still serve you: respect them, and build around them rather than smothering them!

Spend some time acting out "yourself" to whoever's willing to listen. This might be your partner(s), your friend(s), your headmate(s), or you could consider writing as yourself in a diary, on a website, or on a blog. This may feel silly at first, but eventually with time it'll become more natural to you; it's a way of stepping into yourself!

Curiosity mapping and finding interests

Finding what you like might feel like an overbearing task, and it's hard to know where to start. To make this a little easier, you can make something of a mind map.

Start with some things you're curious about. This can be small things like a song, a food or a kind of plushie, or large things like space, nature or art! Try to write at least 3 things to start.

Next, we'll play some word association. What comes to mind regarding these topics? What's similar or adjacent to them? It can be anything you can think of, there's no wrong answers. It doesn't necessarily have to interest you all that much, it just has to be something you'd be up for looking into.

You can go as many layers deep as you'd like!

After you feel like you're finished mapping, select a couple things that strike your fancy, and look into those things. You can move around the entire map if you wish, but just a couple things is all that's necessary. You can do this technique as many times as you'd like, especially jumping off of things that you ended up liking from previous mindmaps.

Styling

You can wear your identity proudly, but you can also style it to really make it yours! This part is all for fun, and isn't necessary, but it helps build some individuality.

How can you make your presence stand out? Consider:

Other tidbits and ending thoughts

Hopefully some of these tips help!

Here's some unorganized tips and tricks that weren't big enough to get their own section:

I wrote this guide for my girls (and others) in Nothing Girl Alliance, shoutout to them! I'm doing everything in my power to make the way forward clearer and as easy as possible for the people I care about. That includes you!

If you have some methods you've stumbled upon yourself that you think would be useful to be written here, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and my system, I'd love for your ideas to be written here with mine! I'll also update this guide with my system's own new methods as we come across them.