When Will I Learn?

“Dear Universe, I want a job that I can work from home, on my computer.”

Really? Is that what I asked for? No other parameters like, how much time spent, how much money made, how fulfilling it is, just the blanket request for work?

Wow. Careful what you ask for…it’s time for me to go back to the drawing board and get a bit more specific. I get so wrapped up in the big picture that sometimes I forget the details. Details like how many hours a day and how many days a week and just how much do I want to be compensated for…I only focused on that great vision of being able to work wherever my computer found a connection—think of the freedom, I thought!  Think of the fun! Think of the adventure!

Well, that part is great, I'm not really complaining, but when will I ever learn to get really specific about what I want…really, really specific? It works, I know it does, so I’d better put my thinking cap on and begin to set some limits otherwise I will be working til the wee hours of the morning everyday and missing the real beauty of my life…the freedom to explore!

Dear Universe…..

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. " Helen Keller

Introverts can be easily overwhelmed with too much stimuli and will often deny themselves opportunities to experience new and exciting things for this very reason. While that might seem like the prudent thing to do…conserve energy…it can actually lead to a severe energy drain caused by under-stimulation.  As humans, we need a certain amount of excitement in our lives in order to stay involved and connected with our world. Without this excitement we begin to shut down and withdraw…which can become a serious pathway to depression.

As a very sensitive introvert, I effectively shut down for years. I craved exciting adventures but didn’t know how to manage them for my self. So like Helen Keller’s quote above, my life seemed ‘nothing at all’. Once I realized the complete prison I held myself in, I was able to begin breaking the chains of my shackles and begin living….really living.

Recharging and withdrawing are two different things, yet to the introvert they are closely linked by a fine line. In learning how to manage stimulus, the first step is to understand your unique needs. Chart your patterns of activity-to-energy ratios.  Discover what gives you positive stimulus and negative stimulus. As an introvert, all stimuli will drain you, but experiencing positive excitement will help keep you connected without causing further tendency to withdraw, only to recharge.

The next step is to choose the correct stimulus (excitement/adventure), because it must fit with, not only your innate personality needs, but where you are in your personal journey as well. If your daily life is filled with a lot of stressors, then a little excitement stimulus goes a long way...learn to keep your balance. Yes, you can even learn to manage extreme excitement with a lot of planning and fore thought. So add your stimulus carefully, and well…not too much, not too little, but, as Goldie Locks says: “Just right!”

Air Quotes No Longer Needed

When I talk about my Facebook friends, it’s usually with air quotes... you know, “friend”, and a little chagrin too wondering if I sound like that crazy cat lady. Well, I’d like you to meet my new FB friend, Sue Elliott, air quotes no longer needed. Sue lives in the Napa Valley—I love the Napa Valley. Sue writes an inspirational blog—I love inspirational blogs…but that’s only the beginning of this story.

I met Sue over brunch at Bank Bar in Napa. It was everything I expected it to be… I just knew. We became FB friends last year. We chatted via Wall Posts, Comments and Messages. All good, all fun, but last fall I had a gut feeling that I needed to connect with her face to face. Not surprisingly she agreed, and this weekend we made it happen on her turf, because I’m always up for an adventure.

She felt like an old friend from the moment we greeted. Our paths were different but somehow similar. We were kindred spirits long before we met. I could share with you the various conversations that consumed our short time together, because talk, we did—for three non-stop hours. But the conversation was secondary to the extraordinary energy that wrapped around us as new friends. Friends that would not have happened, had it not been for the internet and social media sites…the perfect medium for an introvert like me.

Where else can you meet with someone consistently on your time frame, in your comfort zone without sharing too much space and energy except you’re ready and willing? I’ve heard debates about how social network sites isolate us from the human connection…I find just the opposite. Without social network sites, those of us who are shy or reserved find it nearly impossible to generate new friends outside of our immediate circle. No, I do not use FB in place of friends, but I use it as a stepping stone to more involved, quality friendships. I certainly could never be with this large of a group of people so easily and happily in a physical space and time. And as with all social groups, I can enjoy many and cherish the few that I have been lucky enough to connect with deeply.

Sue, thank you for your friendship--from virtual to reality--and a fine adventure too.

My Life as an Introvert

Introverts are people who are energized by being alone and whose energies are drained by being around other people. They often avoid social situations for this very reason.  Please note that they do not avoid social situations because they don’t like people….if the average introvert is like me, then they truly like people. Just not en masse, and not for extended periods of time. I don’t judge a social situation by who will be there or how fun it will be, but rather how easily I will be able to manage my energy during and after the event. I hate feeling left out, but I hate feeling overwhelmed and exhausted more...it seems it's always a fine line I walk.

I enjoy being alone as it gives me time to be with my thoughts. I am considered reserved and reflective. I take my time to formulate my thoughts before speaking them. I am often left out of conversations for this very reason. I am not shy, but I am ‘slow-to-warm’ when meeting new people. I prefer to have a few close friends rather than many. If I don’t get enough time to be reflective with my thoughts I get a bit grumpy and begin to shut down socially. In that way I can be a bit of a bear…when it’s time to hibernate, outta my way!

The need for small talk escapes me. I cannot fathom the fun in large, noisy parties. When I find myself in such social events, I’m usually the one in the corner or somewhere on the periphery. Feeling trapped scares the daylights out of me.

Am I a hostage to my personality traits? Not in the least. I know who I am and what to expect from my sensitivities. I am just an introvert…nothing more, nothing less. I am a problem solver and a free thinker. There's rarely a subject that doesn’t hold fascination for me…my mind never seems to shut down, and I prefer it that way. One of my greatest joys is finding the time to just take that mental journey into the unknown…

I have learned to embrace an adventurous attitude…the thrill of discovery is all around in the ordinary and the extraordinary. I seek the new, and the never seen in my everyday life. I require nothing but my imagination to amuse myself…well a bit of solitude and a distant, far-off horizon helps too. I am an introvert pure and simple. I am enough. I don’t dislike people, I just like being with myself more.

Are You an eSnob Too?

I don’t understand the language of tweeting…the @, # and RT stuff. Yes, technically I know what they mean, but I’m just not sure how to use them or when, or why. Last week I wrongly attributed a quote to a Facebook friend. I thought the words of wisdom originated with her, but now I find that she was sharing what someone else had said. Apparently the quote about the more open you are, the better you can hide, was from @Stowe Boyd. (Sorry Juliette, I still think you’re awesome.)

Yes, I have a Twitter account and I do Tweet from it occasionally, mostly from Tweetdeck or Tweetlater, so I rarely go to my home page. It seems that my resistance to the whole thing has a bit of negative judgment attached. You see, I have 2,250 followers now….hah! Where did they come from, and why are they following me? And, be honest, who can consistently say anything meaningful in 140 characters or less? AND if that weren’t bad enough, when you do Tweet, it gets buried pretty darned fast in that sea of chatter…kind of like talking in a crowd of extroverts. It seems to me that Tweets are simply small-talk: Mindless chatter that translates to a waste of time. Am I an iSnob? 

Does that mean that Twitter is mostly for extraverts and Facebook is the choice of introverts? Not sure yet…could simply be my quirks, and Lord knows I have a few. Would love to know how you feel about the different social media venues out there…Do you Tweet, Facebook? I know you read blogs since you’re reading this….what’s your favorite way to interact on the internet?

Social Camouflage for Introverts

“The more open you are, the more you can hide.” 

While I'm using this quote from media expert Juliette Powell out of context—as she was not referring to personality traits—it started me thinking in terms of introversion (of course). I believe that I’ve adopted this philosophy in my own way. My need for privacy is huge…and so I have learned the art of talking all day without really saying anything. No, not in a mindless, small-talk blather, but instead, I have a range of topics that I feel perfectly OK to openly share with anyone.

 

I’ve learned to take control of the conversation with this technique to avoid personal questions that I am uncomfortable fielding. Most people are happy just to have the air waves filled with words, and I have found that when I talk a lot no one seems to notice my inherent need for privacy. So in the words of Juliette Powell, yes, I can seem to be very open without alerting others that I am really giving nothing away.

It’s one of the social camouflages I use, which is probably why I hear “you don’t seem like an introvert to me” so often. The benefit of this strategy is that I appear fairly ‘extroverted’ in social gatherings, but downside is it takes so much energy to chatter away happily…it depletes me even faster than usual.

What do you think introverts…how often do you wear your camo?…and is it a good idea to ‘hide’ in the open once in a while?

(Juliette Powell, and her expertise, can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/juliettepowell)

At the End of My Rope...

I was feeling ‘at the end of my rope’ the other day. It doesn’t really matter what the particular issues were. What does matter, however, was that intense feeling of frustration, locking me all up inside…then I realized that with each rope we come to the end of, we are offered choices of paths to take.

One popular saying is "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on." But I had to wonder, am I so busy hanging on to the rope that I am totally missing the opportunities that are presenting themselves to me? And if that were true, just what did my rope look like and why was I so attached to it? Well, that’s less of a question because it’s pretty easy to dearly hang on to the known just to avoid the unknown. It’s what we call our comfort zone (no matter how uncomfortable it is).

Lately I’ve been drawn to stories and quotes about adventure…I know that adventure is less about climbing mountains and more about attitude and taking personal risks…especially emotional risks. I feel that I am, once again, on the precipice of another great leap in my life, for I have battled with this ‘end of my rope’ syndrome for months now. I’m not sure what my new direction will be, but the thing is, I can't go in a new direction until I'm ready to let go of the rope.

What ‘ropes’ are you hanging on to? What opportunities are showing up for you, that you are ignoring? Just what would happen if you let go of that rope and let your feet land where they may? Hmmm… Happy adventuring fellow introverts.

I’ll Bet You’re Wondering...

I’ll bet you’re wondering how my last adventure turned out. The short version is “it didn’t”. I’ve been thinking all weekend how to spin this into an adventure (i.e. Adventure-Gone-Wrong) but, for the life of me, I can’t.  So many things started unraveling 30 minutes into our excursion that we made a quick, executive decision to scrap the trip and recoup our loses at home as best we could.  With grand bravado we declared: “We don’ need no stinkin' road trip to have fun!”  There was plenty to do close to home.

Even that got scrapped…rain, headaches and sore throats began to rule the day. So here it is Monday morning, still nursing a headache, with little to show for my grand adventure than a promise of tomorrow (well, not really tomorrow, but one day soon).

Here’s what I learned, however:

It’s nobody’s fault – sometimes ‘stuff’ happens.

Even the best laid plans can go awry--Roll with it.

Let it go…move on and stay in the moment as that’s the only thing you’ve got anyway.

You know when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade? Well, I made chocolate cake and it seemed to work pretty well too.