#internal communication

Hello! This post will discuss the importance of bonding as a system, and some activities you and your headmates can do to try and grow closer together. We’re writing from our own experience as a system with members who, at this point, tend to get along much better than we used to due to the progress we’ve made trying to bond and get to know each other! These tips and suggestions may not work for everyone, but we still hope they’ll be useful to some folks. Let’s get started!

If you’re new to connecting as a system, please check out our post on establishing contact with headmates before reading this one. The post you’re reading now assumes that you already have some level of communication abilities with your headmates.

Having a headspace where your system members can interact internally can also be a useful tool, and building a headspace together can be a bonding activity in and of itself! If you’re interested in creating a headspace, our headspace post might also be beneficial.

Trying to bond as a system may be useful if:

- your system’s communication is shoddy at best

- you disagree or fight a lot

- you can’t seem to enjoy time in each other’s company

- you want to strengthen already established connections

- you need to lower dissociative barriers

- you just want to get to know each other better as system members!

All in all, we think that trying to bond as a system can be helpful for almost any system in almost any circumstance. As headmates, we share the same mind and body; why not take steps to ensure we can feel close and comfortable with each other?

We’ll break down potential bonding activities into two groups: internal and external.

Internal

Bonding internally can look incredibly different from system to system and even from headmate to headmate! Our system spends most internal bonding time in our headspace, but we do believe it is possible to bond without one. Here are a few bonding activities that your system can practice internally, in the safety and comfort of your own mind!

Talk to each other!

Seriously, just spend time having conversations and trying to get to know each other! Ask each other questions, or fill out the questions from plural ask games if you’re struggling to think of things to ask. Create inside jokes, goof off, have serious debates, confide in each other, and share as many moments together just talking as you can! Trust and communication won’t always come naturally overnight, but regularly making attempts to talk, laugh, and share with your headmates can be a fantastic way to bond.

You don’t have to talk with fully formed, complete thoughts! You can use the unique ways your system thinks and behaves in order to communicate. Sending emotions, images, or simply vibes are all great and valid ways to communicate!

It’s okay if your headmates can’t find much to talk about at first or have difficulties getting along! Practicing being an active listener and attempting to be receptive to your headmates’ ideas, even if you don’t agree with them, can ultimately help you all grow closer together as a collective.

Learn about each other’s interests!

If your headmates are distinct individuals, try spending time teaching each other about your own individual skills and interests. Ask your fangirl headmate to explain the plot of her favorite show to you. Ask your headmate who does homework to try and explain the concepts to you that they’re learning in school. Ask your headmate who loves Legos to talk about their favorite sets or what they like building most. Try treating each other like people who you genuinely want to get to know!

If you are having trouble finding common ground, expressing interest in each other’s interests can be a fantastic way to warm up to each other and help your whole system feel loved, wanted, and included.

Even if your system does not have distinct members, you can still try bonding over shared interests and having conversations with each other that pertain to the things you all like to do! You don’t have to be completely distinct or individual in order to bond and grow closer together over interests and activities.

Spend time together in headspace!

If your system has a headspace, there’s all sorts of fun activities y’all could do together within it! Headspaces are visualization tools and exercises in imagination, so if you can imagine it, you can include it in your headspace. Your system could go on a high fantasy adventure together, a deep sea diving expedition, or a horseback ride in the mountains! You could build a treehouse or clubhouse together, have a fashion show, or visit a castle in the clouds. The only limits are your own imagination! Try collaborating with your whole system to think of some fun, cozy, or exciting ways y’all could spend time together in your own headspace.

Of course, it doesn’t always have to be high action and excitement! Our system’s favorite way to bond internally is just chilling out in a cozy living room space that we designed together. We put on some relaxing music and just talk or spend time in each others’ presence. Even something small like this could prove to be a immensely uplifting bonding experience!

External

If your system experiences lots of cofronting or coconsciousness or if visualization and imagination don’t come naturally for you, external bonding activities might be a good way to go! Nearly anything that you do on your own can be modified into a group activity for your system. Here’s a few ideas to help y’all get started!

Make art and be creative!

Bust out your pens, markers, crayons, and paints, and start creating something new with your system! Each headmate can add their own unique element to the artwork. If you don’t cofront often, just keep your art piece out in a visible space with a note nearby encouraging others to take part if they wish. You could also try writing a story, song, or poem together, with each headmate adding their own ideas and contributions. Allow your headmates each to express themselves in ways they feel comfortable, and surprise yourselves with the beautiful masterpieces you come up with!

Divvy up actions!

Work on building a new hobby or skill and designate tasks for different headmates to do! Want to bake cupcakes? Have one headmate read the instructions, another assemble the ingredients, another mix and pour the batter, and someone else keep track of a timer while it’s in the oven. You can break up activities and tasks in this way for almost anything, making group activities that your whole system can take part in every day! You can even do chores or obligations in this way to help make daily life less exhausting or monotonous for your whole system.

If your system is struggling to have multiple cofronters remain present when doing activities together, remember that practice makes perfect! It’s okay if you all find this sort of exercise challenging at first. The more you all commit to working on being present together, the easier it may become in the future!

Have fun in cofront!

There’s a bunch of things you can do when other members are fronting together in order to have a fun, bonding experience with your headmates. Put together a movie night with popcorn and a pillow fort! Go for a walk at a nearby park or spend some time in your local library or coffee shop! Play videogames together! Host an in-system book club! Pamper yourselves with an at home spa day! Throw yourselves a fancy tea or dinner party!

Brainstorm with your system to come up with some fun ideas that y’all can do to bond together whenever multiple members are cofronting together! And remember that cofronting is not always a requirement for these sorts of things! Members can be coconscious and still able to enjoy and experience these bonding activities. Even if both cofronting and coconsciousness are impossible for your system right now, you can commemorate your positive experiences with collages, scrapbooks, pictures, and journal entries to help share your life with your headmates.

Wrapping Up

It’s never a bad idea to try to connect with and get to know your headmates better! Keep in mind thought that many systems may find it easier for their headmates to bond with each other in a plethora of different ways. If nothing we’ve mentioned here will work for your collective, why not try to collaborate to think of fun, interesting, achievable ways for your whole system to have fun and bond in ways that work for y’all? It may take time, effort, and practice, but we truly believe that your system will be able to establish ways to bond that work well for y’all!

If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading! Our apologies that this post got so long. You’re welcome to share in a comment or reblog the ways in which your own system bonds and grows closer together. As always, thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day!

- @hydrochlor1c-4cid

there is definitely some amount of practice involved in getting good at internal communication, though that might be harder to start since y'all said you don't have much energy for it. my initial ideas would be:

pace yourselves on the internal front. don't force each other to speak for sure.

try talking just 1-on-1 if possible, or only really trying to talk to one headmate at a time

sometimes throughout the day, we like to just say "hi" into the abyss and see if we can get anything back to practice. its a fairly quick exercise and doesn't take much, just 10-ish seconds for us, so maybe this will help a little

don't ask complicated questions you're not sure can be answered easily, its easier to just start out with yes or no questions. talk to each other like therapists of overthinking teenagers.

try using external communication secondarily, like a pad of paper or a text window, while your internal skills are the ones being worked on any communication is a reason to be happy

not sure if this is very helpful but we find that co-fronting, being co-con and other states help us to communicate both verbally and non-verbally internally

have some conversations where one headmate in front only speaks aloud, and have one other try to speak internally so its easier to tell exactly who's who, this can help with blurriness and confusion when both are speaking internally later on

if you need to stop, then just stop, again it wont be helping anyone to force it