How to manage life when you're an introvert

How to manage life when you're an introvert
November 14, 2017

From that blog I started but closed again

This is me. Hi!

I'm Linda, I'm an introvert. 

There, I've said it. I used to feel so weird about it. I used to feel ashamed of it. You're supposed to be "outgoing, social, sparkly and splendid" as a young, Western woman, and I can be all of the above, but afterwards I need to go home and clean my head of all the energies of other people that are filling me up. 

This is me, in the picture, in desperate need of alone-time. Down-time. Introvert-time. 

After a few days of socialising, running around, being busy, doing stuff outside... I get to a point where if I don't get my time, it might be too late. I might end up with a migraine. Today I thought I was being clever- I just "just gonna go to the gym" and then I was gonna go home and heal. 

But it was too late. 

The headache that I felt coming yesterday as a warning to myself had been ignored and pushed aside. Once I came home from the gym, I took a long, hot shower and once it was solid and confirmed that now is MY TIME, the headache came, full force. 

It's my leverage, my thermometer. I'm sure all introverts have different signs coming very clearly from their bodies. Mine happens to be headache, and I always think I'm smarter than it, but it always beats me. 

So instead of doing my favourite introvert-activities such as writing and drinking tea and watching Astrology reports on YouTube, I had to lie very still in my bed, curtains drawn, and take a painkiller, and try to relax until it went away. It took close to 5 hours. Those are 5 very precious hours of diving into my inner world and getting my fill of inner jewels and diamonds through journeying into quiet tombs of silence. 5 hours that I lost, because I ignored the signs of my body saying exactly what it needed yesterday. 

This is a wonderful, simply illustrated article on what it is like for an introvert to process information. It is just simply put: different from that of an extrovert.

According to Susan Cain, the mother of all introvert-information out there, the modern pioneer in advocating introvert's rights, says that it is often seen as something shameful to be an introvert in today's extrovert culture.

In schools, extroverted children are prized, even though introverted ones get better grades. Susan says that Western society has always favoured the man of action, over the man of contemplation. 

On the website Psychology Today in an article about introverts and extroverts, the percentage of the two types are divided in a very vague way. They write that extroverts make up 50-74 procent of the population while introverts are 16-50 procent. 

They explain the main difference between extroverts and introverts as having their brains wired differently. The front part of an introvert's brain is most active, and stimulated by solitary activities while the back part of the extrovert's brain is the most active and is stimulated by sensory events coming from the external world.

A chemical know as dopamine is released by our brains whenever we experience something positive. It is an automatic reward center which makes us feel good. Extroverts need more dopamine to feel an effect, while introverts have a low dopamine threshold. They don't need a lot of stimulation to feel rewarded. 

When it is explained like that, I don't feel so weird about it. I do feel weird though about needing to spend time alone after being "out" and I always felt weird as a child for wanting to spend hours alone.

Back then I of course didn't know that I was an introvert, I just knew I had a strong need to be alone, and I knew that people around me thought it was weird, so I was kind of ashamed of it. 

I remember one summer when we were at our usual beautiful island in the Swedish archipelago off the coast of Blekinge. I had my best friend visiting me and we were together 24/7, plus we were with my family, and with friends.

One evening I just couldn't handle it anymore. I jumped out of the window, and ran all the way to the wooden pier, by the little beach, where we spent all those long summer days. It was early evening, and the summer light was soft and long, as always in Sweden. It would last until nearly midnight.

I kicked my sandals off, and went to the far edge of the pier, and just sat there, and felt the pier being rocked by the soft movement of the water, and I can still hear the sound of the swallows and the squeaking sound of the boats where they were tied to the pier. Unfortunately, the peace didn't last for very long, as they all came running, stressed, looking for me.

They probably thought I was suicidal or something, sitting there all by myself at the edge of the wooden pier, staring into the horizon. 

I loved reading books, and I much preferred to read Nancy Drew-books as a 7 year old, than to be out playing with the other kids. I had such a vivid imagination, that whatever was going on in my head was more than enough to keep me occupied. 

I still love reading books, although these days I mostly read children's stories to my boys before they fall asleep. I am hoping my love for books and stories will transmit to them, by showing my own love.

Books and stories have always been my best friends and companions in life and some of them I carry with me forever. I can experience a book so deeply, so widely, that sometimes I am unsure whether it happened in reality or it was something I "just read."

I remember one time I was reading a book that captivated me so strongly, that I forgot where I was. I was sitting on the overground train in London, back then it was called the "Silverlink", and it was my favourite way of travelling in London. You didn't have to go down into the depressing underground and you didn't have to be stuck in traffic on a double decker bus.

The Silverlink cut through all of north London; all the way from around Chiswick in West London, to Kensal Rise (where I lived) to Camden and then direction east, all the way to Dalston. It even made a stop at Euston road so I could skip across to my university, SOAS. Amazing.

Some of the best parts of London connected through a train filled with daylight, and all you saw from the window was greenery and backyards. The soft parts of town. The bright. The back. The uncensored.

The brown bricks and the chimneys and the endlessly green rain-soaked gardens with wooden fences that were caving in from years of rain felt so inspiring to my soul. Like quiet tombs filled with wonder. 

So I was sitting on my bright spot at the Silverlink and I was reading a book, set in Burma. It was "The Glass Palace" by Amitav Ghosh. As I had already travelled to Burma, it was easy for me to picture the surroundings and the settings of the book.

I was deeply inside the story, and at one moment someone asked me to move my feet from the seat opposite me, and I looked up, completely disoriented and lost. I had to look around, shake my head, and look back at the person who was speaking to me, to understand where I was.

I had actually been to Burma. And it was confusing to look up and see the insides of the train. It didn't look like a Burmese train. I'd been in Burma, for real, and that person asking me a very reasonable question had shaken me out of my inner trip. 

I would go insane, though, if I spent all my time alone. I also feel inspired by people. In fact, I really resonate with Oscar Wilde's words "My own business bores me to death. I prefer other people's."

I love meaningful meetings, soulful connections, hearing other people's stories. What drains me, is meaningless conversations. "Hello, how are you? Great, and you? Fantastic!" That sort of thing. Empty words, nothing, seeing a lot of people in one big event, and saying nothing of substance to anybody. Quantity, rather than quality. 

I love interesting, weird, strange people. The ones that stand out from the crowd. I can usually spot them from kilometres away. Once I "feel" a connection with someone, it's like it was always there, and will always be there. 

When I come home after a day of having a lot of those meaningless conversations, which unfortunately has to happen in my life, I love to darken all windows, and take a shower. It feels as if the water washes off the energy of other people, and clears me up.

Then I put on my favourite music. Music heals me so deeply. And I write. Journal. Or clean the clutter of my house. Cook. Organise. Write lists. Straighten my head out. Practice yoga. Do a meditation. Yoga nidra. Watch a movie. I can sometimes do this for up to 24 hours. Especially lately, when the kids are with their father, I love not leaving my home for a full 24 hour cycle, and re-energise the core of my being. 

After that me-time, I'm ready to go out again, and pick up new impressions from the world. 

Sorry if I sound strange. I have accepted that this is what I need to function in this world. I used to escape on very long journeys in my 20´s, alone, to faraway places, and just be alone. Now that I have kids, it has to be super efficient and in short, much appreciated moments only. 

That's how I manage. Maximise the introvert-time. Dark apartment, soft music, water and books. 

If you happen to be an introvert, honor it. Don't ignore it. You're the way you are and that's so, so beautiful, to be exactly that.