Do Not Be Afraid of Dying, Be Afraid Instead of Not Living.

Has introversion been a prison for you? A reader’s recent question: “How do I climb out of my shell without making myself stressed and end up sick?” Now, I may not know what ‘coming out of my shell’ means to this reader, or how the stress manifests itself or even what the type of sickness might be…I don’t have to because for many introverts this is a familiar struggle. Our system’s struggle to handle the chemical and emotional overload that comes with the territory of being introverted is what we deal with on a daily basis: 24/7.

If it were as easy as being well energized then a quiet nap in darkened room would be the cure-all and we could go about our merry ways. But often, that’s only touching the surface of our struggles. This same reader wondered if they were just weird. Now that is a whole new box of crayons with which to color ones world.

I’m weird. I know I am, and I fully embrace it…now. But I knew I was weird as a child too, and that didn’t feel very solid to my young psyche. I knew I didn’t fit in, I wasn’t like the others. Therefore, I must be faulty. THAT, I think is what many introverts struggle with today…the wounds from childhood that happened as they tried to make sense of their world—to integrate their inner and outer worlds.

These wounds can be big ‘T’ traumas, or little ‘t’ traumas. But let me assure you, those little t’s can pack quite a wallop. So for introverts, we have to learn to come to terms with our misconceptions about the world before we can safely come out of our shell and adventure out into it on our own terms. The world is as safe and as scary as you allow it to be. For me, the true light began to flicker inside when I finally ‘got’ what was meant by these wonderful words: Do not be afraid of dying, be afraid instead of not living.