IntrovertHSP
130 Guests and Me
This is a post written in installments over the course of, and just after a weekend of wedding celebrations. A weekend of activities that were just made for me… not. .. Having said that, I do wish to empathize that I am here to enjoy myself, make new friends and most importantly celebrate the commitment that a lovely couple are making to each other.
And so it begins…
I start this log on Friday evening. I am getting ready for the rehearsal dinner on the eve of the wedding of my wife’s niece - having married into the family, I’m not sure what her official relationship is to me? There will be 130 guests here tonight. Not the largest wedding that there has been, but by no means the smallest either.
I love this family. Watching the interaction between the parents and their adult children in many ways makes me yearn for a relationship with my own parents that I have never had…and probably won’t at their advanced age.
The wedding has seen me visit a part of the US that I have never been to, the Catskill Mountains, and I am always grateful for the opportunity to explore new vistas. So far the weather has been glorious, almost too hot, and it has been good to catch up with close family. We had a small, intimate dinner last night which was very pleasant, a handful of us having the hotel to ourselves.
Giving myself permission
As an introvert, an INFJ, I know that this weekend of extended activities will pose a challenge. Long periods of socializing, small talk with relatives who I recognize but do not know that well and with people who I am meeting for the first time. In the midst of this activity, I will have to find time to step back and recharge, and in doing so give myself permission to step out of the crowd when others are full into conversation and celebrations.
The permission part is important for me. When attending an event where the more extroverted guests are chatting, laughing and carrying on with seemingly endless energy, I find that I can very easily drop into feelings of inadequacy. A judging and unhelpful voice in my head telling me that I should be able to keep up with the crowd. As Aaron Caycedo-Kimur, writing under the alias INFJoe, says in his book “Text, Don’t Call,”
When we understand, accept, and appreciate our introversion, we become more at peace with ourselves. We learn how to tap into our strengths and protect our vulnerabilities.
The weekend - Friday
Friday evening went well. I had a couple of extended conversations with relatives that I had not seen for a while. Long conversations are easy for me if I get into the flow of the subject matter. I pulled myself away from the hubbub on a few occasions, just looking out from the periphery. My lack of enjoyment of small talk, and over stimulation from all the activity, did keep me away from meeting some people. I could feel an uncomfortableness creep in when I wasn’t drawn to conversation, a consciousness of my difference but I breathed into the permission that I had given myself, reminding myself that I am not less because of it. This is just an aspect of my personality….and I wondered who else amongst the guests was feeling the same way?
Saturday
Saturday, the wedding day, went equally well. Breakfast, a morning walk, long preparations, driving to the venue with my mother-in-law and helping her get situated….and then just taking in the celebrations of the day. The Ceremony was beautiful, the vows between bride and groom moving. Pre-meal drinks, a beautiful dinner, speeches and much dancing (which I enjoy) to a great band. At times I lent into conversations with those who I did not know well however uncomfortable or otherwise that I felt. At other times I could feel myself pulling back and choosing not to engage. Again it was about permission. Permission to honour myself and my needs. By the end of the evening I was actually reluctant to leave.
Sunday
The final hurrah was brunch on Sunday. There were conversations and reflections on the night before. Final words shared before slowly the guests started packing up and heading off on their various journeys home. Again I lent into some conversations, maybe more than the night before with the faces not being so foreign as when we first met yesterday?
And slowly it became time to leave….
Reflections
There had been a long build up to the wedding and now it is over. I felt that crash of coming down from the high of a weekend of activity and fun. As is the introvert’s tendency, I spent time in my head when it was all over analyzing whether I should have reached out to people more than I did. I probably spent far too much time doing that, dropping into feelings of inadequacy or wondering what people might have thought of me as I held back.
And I remind myself that such can be this introvert’s way. I don’t see it as good or bad, it is just who I am. I always see the possibility for change in who I am as an individual. That change won’t necessarily be how other people think that I should be. I am still an INFJ. However, I can still explore and see where my limits might be. I can make a stretch, to see if I am limiting myself by who I have told myself that I am and corresponding learnt habits.
And when I do reach my limits, when I do need quiet time, when I don’t feel like socializing, that is OK. To repeat INFJoe’s quote,
When we understand, accept, and appreciate our introversion, we become more at peace with ourselves. We learn how to tap into our strengths and protect our vulnerabilities.
Catnapping
Being able to catch a quick 40 winks can be a life saver for me. I usually find a patch of the afternoon, mid-afternoon, when I start flagging. My eyes start becoming heavy and ache, an ache that might drift round to the back of my head. I notice that my ability to focus or be productive in my work, dives. I can push myself to keep going, but my work becomes less focused and more fractured. I know that what I really want is to stop, rest my body, and close my eyes.
If I am at home, I will lie on my bed or curl up on a chair - I was on the sofa this afternoon - but I have been known to doze in the car, get out of the chair that I am sitting on and just lie on the floor, or even escape to the bathroom in a house that I am visiting, curl up on the floor of and drift off for 10 or 15 minutes, my hand acting as a pillow. The weariness can be so great that provided I am warm - coldness, especially cold shoulders, appear to be what keep me awake - I will fall asleep or drift into a deep in between state, almost anywhere.
Quality of sleep
There is a quality to catnapping for me which is very different to a regular night’s sleep. It is not that. It is like a quick refuel which will get me through the remaining hours of the day. I am still ready for bed come the end of the day. But the nap feels as though it takes me deep, to a deep place of rest. I close my eyes, withdraw inwards putting aside everything that is going on in my life and drift off. I am always amazed at just how refreshed I feel afterwards. Indeed research has shown the benefits to mental performance of such power naps.
Personality’s part?
Without that ability to take a quick catnap, making it through the days would be much harder for me. I put some of my need for these power naps down to the years that I suffered from chronic fatigue, more of which I plan to write about soon. I have also wondered what part my introverted and highly sensitive personality play in my need for a nap? If my day is more in a flow, running more with my needs, there is less of a need for a nap.
For now though I am grateful for the ability to be able to take a quick nap, and especially not necessarily needing a bed to flop into when I need to grab one.
Tonight is the monthly meeting of the Introvert/Highly Sensitive men’s group here on Maui. I started it about 19 months ago, unsure if there would be a call for it. Now it is a fixture on the calendar.
I have just put the 2nd edition of my Meditation eBook up on my website. Although titled that it is aimed at introverts and highly sensitive people, anyone who wishes to build a meditation practice will find benefit in it.
In Transition
(aka, looking for a quieter online life)
Spring has sprung. Even in the tropical climate of Hawaii, it has been noticeable in the last couple of days. The temperature has risen, this was a cold winter. Even out of State visitors were noticing that - sometimes cold for a Hawaii residents is still warm for a visitor! The rain appears to be lessening and the warmth of the sun feels so good as it works its way through to the marrow of my bones.
Changes are happening elsewhere in my life. These have been slower paced than the recent seasonal changes, but they are there. A few days ago I completed the edit and transfer of my website from the Weebly platform, to the more minimalist Blot. This has been part of a more wide reaching process that started around autumn of last year when I stumbled across the social and blogging platform, micro.blog. As can happen on the internet, I was searching for something unrelated and came across micro.blog. I was intrigued, I think in part as it appeared to be speaking to something that I was unknowingly looking for.
I was signed up to a lot of social media sites. The reasons were varied - keep in touch with family and friends, virtual networking, publicizing my business, and there was probably a bit of peer pressure or fear of missing out in there as well. But my social media presence was bothering me. I was bothered by the feeling of needing to look at my phone, an action that was constantly being reflected back to me as I saw people around me picking up their own phones…just to checkin in case they (I) had missed something. I had a sense of never being able to keep up with the online world, and in truth not really wanting to. I felt as though I was living in a virtual world that I simply did not enjoy or maybe not even belong to, and I knew that it had a hook in me that was pulling me back in.
Don’t get me wrong about these online connections. In the same way that I enjoy meeting people and enriching the circle of my own awareness, so in this digital age I enjoy meeting kindred spirits online, having good conversations and widening that circle. But therein lay a problem that I was having with social media. At the risk of brushing all of social media with one broad stroke, I was missing enriching conversations. I felt as though I was spending a lot of time trying to keep up - I was looking out for the likes, the best hashtags to use to create more likes, who was following me and what were those other people saying and doing. In the middle of this were some good conversations and connections, but they were getting lost for me under the other hooks of social media.
Micro.blog unexpectedly brought this to my attention.
I knew what was going on for me, but lacked the discipline to put it down. Or maybe I was telling myself that I had to suck it up and run with it?
Discovering micro.blog peeked my interest. No likes, no hashtags, no seeing how many people were following me, community rules. In short, in the words of founder Manton Reece,
It prioritizes both a safe community of microblogs as well as the freedom to post to your own site.
My curiosity was aroused and I signed up for a free trial. Yes, free, as in there is also a paid option. To reap the full benefits of micro.blog, you have to pay for a hosted site. The costs help to maintain the service, means that there are no ads on the service (even when you are trying it out), and I believe goes a long way to help keeping those who do choose to use the service being folks who want a more civil, argumentative free conversation.
Leaving the Old Behind
Initially it felt odd not to see who was following me, the lack of hashtags, not knowing what was going on beyond my immediate surroundings. Then that omnipresence of “what am I missing," became something that I had to let go off, and with time has become something that I’ve forgotten about. My attention span feels as though it is returning. I have returned to more long form reading - articles, blog posts, reading details of the news instead of just headlines - my RSS reader is what I am checking now.
Towards the end of last year I closed all but one of my social media accounts. I still have a Twitter account, held onto mainly because of easy access to software support, but I sense the hold on that slipping.
A Quieter Web
And so back to my Weebly site which is where I started this post. I have never been comfortable with the design process of building a website, and was really wanting something easier to manage - read, less need to worry about look, colour and images. I have wanted something simpler and more minimalist, but which could still get a message across - in essence a website service that was quieter. That I believe is also what I was really looking for in my online life.
While micro.blog is both a social and blogging platform, when I found Blot through micro.blog users it felt closer to what I was looking for from a website platform.
At its heart, Blot publishes what is sitting in a particular folder in your DropBox account to the web. Pictures, and videos can be added, but it is essentially text based with formatting taking place, like micro.blog, via Markdown. That taste of simplicity is what pulled me in and a month ago I signed up for an account. I am very happy that I did.
With micro.blog and Blot I now feel more in control and ownership of my personal online content. My online life has become quieter, but richer.
I have finally put my book on building a Meditation practice, along with tips on how meditation can help introverts and HSPs, up onto my website.
Being introverted or highly sensitive doesn’t fit the archetypal image of a male, but some of us are just wired that way. I wanted to give men a place where they can talk about it.
A recent article about me that appeared in The Maui News.
Frayed Nerves
I am not going to pretend that I can work well when I know that people are around who might call on me at any moment, because I can’t.
Loud music, disturbances, kids shouting, people talking, these distractions and others just throw me when it comes to working. Sometimes, most of the time, just people present in the room with me will intrude on my ability to focus.
Unless they are the quiet type like me, in which case no problem, I sit there anticipating the next interruption.
I can feel it in my body. There is this sense of anxiousness and of tension. I am on edge waiting for what might happen next. All of this just plays into my ability to focus and concentrate. It plays on my ability to drop into the zone and get work done. When I know that I have space around me to work. When I know that people won’t be around for a few hours, I can sit back and relax and get things done. Time will drift by unnoticed and I drop into a zone that deeply feeds me.
But too much disturbance and who knows what mood will be triggered in me - anger, frustration, dejection, just wanting to disappear. Just wanting the world to leave me alone.
Finding Solace in Memories
Introverts spend a lot of time in their inner lives. It is what makes us introverts. We sit, process, think, ruminate and so much so that the external world can sometimes be just too much for us. It is why at times we just want to be quiet, or can seem remote, aloof. We are not ignoring you, just looking to find some time to rest from all that activity and noise.
One place I find myself going, sometimes unexpectedly and normally when I am looking for a safe space to be, is memories. Sweet memories of a time in the past when I felt safe, was alone or exploring the world by myself. Those times when I find myself in a place that resonates deeply with me and perhaps in some sort of way lets me know that everything will be alright. They are memories that I can go to and touch into a true, knowing aspect of myself. Something that I believe in. That no matter what the external world might be saying to me now, going back to that place touches in me a place that I know is can’t be taken away from me.
The memory might be a sudden flash that appears from nowhere, or an image that is invoked by words in a book. But wherever it comes from, the image is normally fleeting, vivid and is accompanied by a feeling for the place or time. And it is that feeling that remains with me long after the image has disappeared.
I’d be interested to hear of any similar experiences that you have had.
When You Doubt Even Yourself
Old habits die hard…even, or maybe especially when they run counter to something that you truly believe in.
Visitors to this site will know that aside from working with introverts and highly sensitive people of both sexes, I have a particular interest in working with men as I believe that personality traits that such personalities engender in people can run counter to how society expects men to behave.
This can result in introverted and highly sensitive men feeling that there is something wrong with them, for them to deny and suppress how they are feeling and what their needs are, and to generally struggle to speak up for what they need for fear of being judged.
I recently started a monthly group here on Maui for men who identify as introverted and/or Highly Sensitive….but it did take a while for it to manifest. Why was that?
The reason was quite simple - my fear of being judged!
I set the group up under the auspices of the ManKind Project here on Maui, an organization which from my experience is accepting and embracing of men of all leanings. My gut was telling me that the community here on the island would benefit from such a group, but I was afraid of putting out an invitation for men to join me because I thought that other men might judge me as in some way being less than due to the simple act of admitting to be of those personality types (primarily due to their own misunderstandings of those personalities). Following on from that would be having to explain and convince the community that there is nothing wrong with such men, that they are fine, normal and have their own set of strengths that should be embraced by society at large.
All of that effort felt too much. Too large of a mountain to climb that might get me into more trouble before I reached the summit, and so much better just to bite my lip and stay quiet.
But hell no!
That is exactly what I want to change…mens’ and society’s in general understanding of introverted and highly sensitive men.
My gut was telling me to do this, and I knew that that intuition would not leave me alone. Indeed that there would be regret if I did not start to the group. And so I lent into that discomfort, that fear to start the group and deal with problems if and when they arose. Hell, who knows….perhaps some good will come of it! Ha!
So I wrote the invitation, sat with it and then pressed send…
And now?
We have now held three meetings. The forth is scheduled for the beginning of March. There have been an average of six men at each meeting with fourteen on the mailing list. It is now a regular feature on MKP Maui’s weekly mail outs of what’s on, and a community meeting got rescheduled as it coincided with our third meeting.
I still don’t know where this group will go, we are allowing it to grow in its own way, but I know that the men who attend are benefitting from it and I am benefitting for taking that risk.
What fear in you are you not leaning into?
Just before the men arrived for the 3rd gathering of Introvert/HSP I-Group here on Maui.
Finding stillness in quiet reflections. New on the blog - finding nourishment in life as an introvert and/or hsp when you feel shaken up - link in the bio.
Getting Things Done When the World Around You is Spinning Out of Control
Can you move from frantic behaviour to concentration? Can you move from disturbance to instant focus? Can you jump from requests for help to focusing on a job that you are trying to get done?
I can’t! Spinning on that sort of dime doesn’t fit my personality.
I need to have time set aside, undisturbed time in order to be able to focus on and accomplish what I am doing. In fact I need to be sure that I won’t be disturbed. If I can’t get that environment, I’ll do my best to cope, but I won’t be feeling comfortable and probably won’t get a lot accomplished.
That does not mean that I wait for quiet times before I spring into action. Sometimes the life around me appears to dictate that noise is the way that things are going to be. I live in a family of extroverts. One can at times feel the uncomfortableness in the room if the volume drops or activity diminishes. And I am speaking here about people who I love.
In an interview HSP author Tracy Cooper, PhD, noted that extroverts need to speak to and explain their actions as they are doing them. The introvert and/or HSP on the other hand is likely to say very little about what they are doing, indeed might even choose not to be around others while they are working.
Flow State
Physiologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi developed the concept of Flow. In essence it is a state when we are totally absorbed in a task (work, sport, parenting), so much so that we do not even notice time go by. It is a state where we lose all sense of self-consciousness and a sense of total well-being, with euphoria or elation enveloping us, but that we don’t notice this until the job is done. The whole human species is wired for the flow state even if we don’t spend much time there.
For HSPs the desire (perhaps need?) to be in that state seems to be even more important because of our inner life, or inner complexity and sensitivity to the world around us compels the need to process it. And I find that to have a chance to drop into that state requires certain conditions to be in place, whether I am aware of them being there or not, before I engage in an activity….which takes me back to the title of this piece.
Ideal Work Environment
Now I am not going to suggest that every time that I’m busy doing something that I am in the flow state, far from it. But all the same if I find myself disturbed by external noise, disturbed by someone else asking me a question, or just constant interruptions, I find it very difficult to focus on my own work. My mind feels like a glass of muddy water. It’s been shaken up and I have to wait for the silt to settle before I can truly focus on the job at hand…..and be pretty sure that I won’t suffer with further disturbances.
My ideal work environment is a room at home with a far, distant view and no one else around, i.e. complete silence and a view to clear a cluttered mind if I am not thinking clearly - yes, even focusing on work for me means that at times I need to clear a log jam in my head.
However, a paradoxically oddity about this ideal work environment is that I can find places which appear to be just the opposite in terms of fitting the bill that I described in the last paragraph, but where I can still focus well. I have sat in the back seats of my pickup truck to do some writing while in between appointments and disappeared into a flow state. I have sat in a busy coffee shop and while not maybe being a flow state, have still found it very conducive to getting work done. With regard to the coffee shop environment (in fact where I am right now), I think that anonymity is what plays into the game. The noise of people speaking and background music, providing neither are too jarring and the coffee shop is comfortable, become white noise, a comfortable noise in the background which appear to support the work in hand. I experience the same on a train, in an airport, in a hotel lobby, all providing that I am by myself and so essentially become anonymous in a crowd, just another face.
Stimulation
Does this mean that unless the volume is just right, the furniture is in the correct place and the walls are painted the exact colour that I won’t get any work done? Consider “Yes and No”. For the “Yes” answer - My introverted, sensitive nature can easily get overloaded if there is too much going on. If this carries on and on, it feels as though that glass of muddy water is continually being shaken, never being given a chance to settle. When that happens to me I just need to stop for a while, and by “Stop” I mean be surrounded by quiet, no more demands, perhaps a distant view to offer perspective and give a chance for my body and mind to settle - that or at least get away and be by myself. Even that anonymity around others can be of help, though solitude is always best.
For the “No” answer - If I can find a middle way balance between some focus time and disturbance, I can get by. It is hard for me to quantify that, but I do know that from time to time I need to take a break or I need a longer focus period. The important thing here is knowing that I will have time to do what I need or want to do, and know that between there will be sufficient quiet time between the disturbance time otherwise the with time the commutative effect of the noise will make the ability to really focus a greater challenge.
Meditation in a Busy World
This reminds me of meditation. One can’t always get the quiet time that one wants and so one has to be flexible in how long one meditates for, and/or one starts to be creative in how one builds shorter meditation sessions into one’s day. So your meditation practice does not need to grind to a halt because you regular sitting environment is being disturbed, you just need to find ways that you can fit it into your day. However, with time the need to retreat will more than likely arise. A wish to step back from the regular activity of life so that you can focus on what you need to do for your own well-being and nourishment.
Nourishment Through Flow
Because that is what I find what working in the flow state gives me - nourishment. It feeds me at some deep soulful level. There is a sense of deep well-being. And while I cannot speak for other personality types, that is something that I feel in deep need of as an introverted, highly sensitive man. The need for being able to touch into that space, the nourishment it gives is so deep, that a prolonged absence of it leaves a hole, a wanting, a sense of lack. I need to be able to spend time immersed in an activity, whether work or personal reading, to immerse and disappear into it to find that sense of well being and nourishment.
And what about yourself? As an introvert and/or highly sensitive person how do you resonate with the idea of flow state? Where do you go to find that place of deep nourishment?
“Boxes, boxes everywhere, and still no place to sit,” with apologies to Hemmingway. With a recent move it feels as though we have been unpacking boxes forever. It has been a real patience practice as I yearn to get back to more creative endeavors, as well as my introverted nature calling out for some solitary time.
However for all that, I mustn’t loose site of the fact that we are blessed with a beautiful new house.
“…HSPs are complex, highly capable individuals who are not like everyone else in temperament and disposition. Our needs are simply different.” ~ Tracy Cooper, PhD, Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career
Sitting in complete silence in our new Barn. Complete silence and stillness such that my ears are ringing. It is in such situations that I can come to peace. The commotion in my mind settles. My heart settles, my body settles, my breathing settles. And with that comes an inner stillness, and greater perspective becomes possible.
The introvert’s mind is busy. Noisier than the extrovert’s. Introverts spend a lot of time in their minds. It is how we are wired. And living with all that noise can become overwhelming at times, exhausting. External noise just adds to the inner noise that we are living with.
In contrast, external silence can allow the noise in our minds to settle, like the dirt in a glass of muddy water.
“Every time you tell an HSP they are too sensitive, it’s like telling someone with blue eyes that their eyes are too blue.” ~ Elena Herdieckerhoff.
Meditation Tips for Introverts and Highly Sensitive People.
I’m pleased to announce the 2nd edition of my eBook, “Meditation Tips for Introverts and Highly Sensitive People.” The book looks at how meditation can help introverts & HSP’s. There are instructions on how to develop a regular meditation practice, how to deal with obstacles that arise and expectations that we put onto ourselves. Further ideas are explored for how you can take meditation out into your daily life
This new edition has a completely new chapter looking at building boundaries into our lives and how that can help our meditation practice. Along with that I have revised the text, changed and added some images, and included some ‘boxes’ interspersed through the text which give suggestions as to how you can take your meditation practice into your daily life.
For more information and to find out how you can get a copy of the book, follow this link. If you have any comments or questions, please do get in touch.
New on the blog (link in my bio) - Self Care Sunday. The importance of self care for the highly sensitive people and introverts.
Self Care Sunday
If we cannot keep ourselves in balance physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually we cannot hope to function from a center of well-being.
~ Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, by Dr. Tracy Cooper, PhD
It is 6:30pm and I have still not made the bed today. That is an unheard of thing for me. I usually can’t get on with my day if I know the bed has not been made. The front door has not been unlocked since I locked it last night - I have not been outside today.
About twenty minutes ago the sun set and once that happens here in Hawaii, because of our proximity to the equator, it gets dark quickly.
Today has been a self care day for me. I woke up not long after 6:00am, not an unusual time for me, but I woke feeling deeply weary - something that is much more than just being tired. It is a feeling of exhaustion that just eats through to my bones. It is brought on by me pushing the limits of my personality as a highly sensitive person. The wise thing to do is to learn what the triggers are that tire me and dial back life a bit so as not to wear myself out. Most of the time I do that, but when I don’t or choose to push on regardless, eventually deep fatigue sets in. That is what I woke up to this morning.
I am by myself at the moment. My wife is visiting her mother on the other side of the country. Other family are also off the island and I had no plans for Sunday. As I lay in bed waking up I could hear rain outside and knew that more was forecast for the rest of the day. Cool temperatures, at least for Hawaii (low 60’s early 70’s), were also on the table. So with that I chose to turn over and doze for an hour longer.
The rest of the day has been taken equally slowly. I stayed in bed until noon - had breakfast, read. At lunchtime, once I was showered I did my meditation practice and then went back to bed for an hour’s sleep. A show on Netflix took up another hour of the afternoon.
I’ll cook myself some dinner this evening and then will finally venture out to put the trash out for tomorrow morning’s early collection.
I share this experience as I believe that introverts and those with sensory processing sensitivity (highly sensitive people) need to make their own self care an important part of their lives. HSP’s, because of their depth of cognitive processing and hypersensitivity to external stimuli, can find situations that others breeze through extremely exhausting. Peer or family pressure might have you feeling that you just need to suck it up and keep going, but sooner or later your body will wave a white flag and you’ll have to stop. As Dr. Cooper says in the quote above, HSP’s need balance in their lives for their own well-being. Try to identify what it is that are your triggers. Set boundaries for yourself and learn to say “no” to that which pushes you too far. Where possible educate others about your personality so that those who you spend time with, at work and home, understand and support you.
I still feel a weariness now. I am hoping that a good night’s sleep will help, I have an early start tomorrow. If am still tired tomorrow, I’ll take next week step by step, pacing myself. Regardless, I am very pleased that I have just stayed at home today, rested and allowed myself to do no more than necessary. Psychologically, just giving myself permission to stay at home and do nothing is a big boon in helping me rest.
As introverts and/or HSP’s I hope that you find, indeed make the time that you need to rest.