Tag: introversion

The Energizer Bunny Lies

I am discovering that everything you see on television and everything you read on the internet is not always correct. My latest revelation is that the Energizer Bunny lies.

I have spent my life believing that emotional energy is an infinite resource. If I wore down, it was because I was obviously doing something wrong. If I only had the right motivation. If I only was not so lazy. If only it didn’t take me so long to complete tasks. If only I had the right batteries. If only something, I could keep on running endlessly, beating my bass drum, and bopping across surfaces.  If only something, I would never halt suddenly and flop over on my side. Unfortunately, in the real world… at least in my real world…. I seem to flop over on my side with an alarming degree of regularity.

This Lent, I have been teaching a course at my church. Several years ago, I adapted some material I learned in my working days and that I have picked up along the way on my spiritual journey to create a class on stewardship and ministry. That course focused on stewardship and ministry, but it also covered other subjects such as prayer and working together as a church. My church offered the course as the world was just cautiously emerging from our COVID cocoon. As you may recall, that was a gradual process. It took a lot of people longer to feel safe enough to occupy public spaces than others. The class consisted of four weekly sessions. I taught each class twice each week, to allow for different schedules and to create opportunities to allow for some social distancing. Between the two offerings, I hosted about thirty people.  The feedback from the class was highly positive, suggesting that it might be worth trying again when breathing the same air as our neighbor began to feel a little safer. Since the course was much broader than simply stewardship, the pastor and I toyed with the idea of making it a more foundational class for people who were new to our congregation. Time passed and stuff happened. The timing just wasn’t right to hold the class again. Last summer, I began working on an expansion and adaptation of that course. Finally, we launched the new St. James Spiritual Formation Course the Tuesday after Ash Wednesday. We are again presenting the classes twice each week, on Tuesday evening and Thursday midday, plus one Saturday session.  This represents 33 hours of teaching time between March 11 and April 10, plus prep time. It also represents exposure and focused interaction with 50-65 people each week. For someone as introverted as I am, that is very peopley.

I will share more of my observations about this experience in another post once I’ve finished the course and have time to reflect on it. For now, let me say that it has been immensely satisfying, rewarding, nourishing, and growth-creating  It has also been exhausting.

Knowing that the journey was going to require all my energy for the duration, I purposely tried to structure the rest of my life to minimize competition for my emotional energy. I intentionally “protected my introversion” by limiting any other people-focused activities in my schedule. I once had a colleague tell me that I am a “closet extrovert.”  Most people see me interacting with others, especially when teaching a class, and assume I must be extroverted because of the way I present myself. They don’t realize two significant factors. One factor is that much of my success in teaching has to do more with listening intently and mindfully, not talking. I can connect and help people towards discovery because I notice signals and listen to everything everyone says to steer the presentation in the direction the students most need to go. The other thing is that, when I finish, I am exhausted. Actually, it is even more than exhausted. I am almost catatonic. I stagger around the room in a trance, unable to hold a thought or frame a sentence. I understand, on some primitive level, that I should be packing up and helping to clean up the debris from the learning party over which I have just presided. However, I can’t seem to figure out specifically what to do. The idea of simply unplugging my computer and putting it in its case is overwhelmingly difficult. I have no judgment about how much I can carry at one time. I forget things as basic as remembering to retrieve my purse from the seat where I left it before leaving the premises. I have a little team of keepers who have made it their personal mission to keep me away from sharp objects after a session. They have taken over the mental load of food wrangling, kitchen duty, and general maintenance to protect me from myself. I am very grateful.

Even with this emotional safety net, it is a marathon. We are more than halfway through now and I may be winning. It is, however, requiring me to carbohydrate load. I fear the beat of my little bass drum is well and truly out of rhythm. I get depleted. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. The huge rewards I am reaping are more than worth a little depletion. Besides, creative energy is a renewable resource, and God is a great recycler. Still, I don’t think it matters which brand of batteries I have installed in me. The Energizer Bunny is a fraud.

Have an energetic day!

Terri/Dorru 😊

Do you have experiences that deplete your energy in the short term but create energy in the long term?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Misfitting In

In some ways, retirement represents a return to the “real me.” 

In my childhood and young adulthood, I was naturally inclined to shyness, quiet, and observation.  Rather than joining groups of people or chiming in on conversations, I tended to stay on my own and listen covertly.  I avoided attending social activities and putting myself in situations where interaction was necessary.  I would “parallel play” my way through daily life- perfectly content to work side-by-side with others, but preferring to not collaborate.

At one point, I considered that I might actually be agoraphobic since there were some days when I literally could not leave the house to go to school and other times when I drove to a party or event, but could not make myself go inside.  Then, I realized that agoraphobia was not my problem.  It wasn’t open spaces of which I was afraid.  It was people.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t communicate with people or even that I did it badly.  In fact, I have always been good at putting my thoughts into words, both in speaking and in writing.  I also have decent empathy with others, good intuition about what the other person is thinking or feeling (must be all that listening over the years!) and a nimble ability to choose communication strategies likely to appeal to and engage the other person.  I just always kind of chose not to do so, except with people with whom I had long term positive relationships.   I used to say I have a slow emotional transmission.  It takes me a long time to get into a relationship gear and then I find it almost impossible to let go of that gear when it is time to part.

Once I started working, my natural sense of duty kicked in.  It struck me that it was my responsibility to take the lead when communicating with customers and employees.  I worked for a federal agency from which most people would be happy to never hear.  Customers were often frightened, upset, and irate, often for good reason.  It was my job to help them feel better and more comfortable dealing with their issues.  As I advanced in the leadership ranks, I recognized that it was my job to communicate well and to create an environment where my employees could feel safe and thrive.  I once heard that my job was basically to hold conversations and I think that was probably correct.

 As time went on, I made conscious efforts to use the communication skills and personal qualities I possessed in all my interactions.  I tried to “pretend until I was” outgoing.  While it got easier to pretend and sometimes I even thought I might be achieving outgoingness, I don’t think I ever actually got there.   I often enjoyed who I was when I pretended to be outgoing, but it took a lot out of me.   I was successful in doing the things that would make me appear warm, outgoing, approachable, trustworthy, and confident in my communication. It was my job.  I did it.  I did it well.  I was exhausted.

Now that I am no longer working, I have reverted to my natural preferences.  As much as I looked forward to joining the book club in my new community, I have somehow not found the time to attend any meetings.  When trying to arrange for vendors or contractors to take care of things around the house, I try very hard to find a way to accomplish my task by email.  When our new next door neighbors invited us to a Christmas party at their home, we went out to dinner first and “stopped by” for only half an hour or so.  I only managed that because I thought it would be rude to decline the invitation. When I go to the water aerobics class, I don’t fold into the little groups of two or three that form in the pool. 

I am finding this opportunity to slide back into observation mode to be very restful.  I am enjoying the blissful silence of my own thoughts, the absence of my frenzied mind spinning around trying to succeed in my charge of advancing the flag of conversation.  I listen and horde the little nuggets I hear inside my brain, turning them over and admiring them in the safety of my quietness. 

Still, this welcome isolation does have its downside.  I feel a bit removed and apart from my surroundings and community.  I have no sense of “belonging.” I initially thought this might be the age difference between me and most of the people around me, but I think it might be more my retirement from forced extroversion. 

The other day, Max asked me if I missed work at all.  I replied that I didn’t miss work, but that I didn’t feel like I “fit in” anymore.  He asked a very insightful question, “Do you want to?” Obviously, after over 30 years of basically communicating and forging relationships for a living, I know what to do to create those connections for myself.  I suppose when I want to fit in badly enough, I will find my niche in the relationship networks in my new life.  I recently offered a piece of advice to one of the women in the pool who I heard talking about her upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon.  I volunteered to help with the photography for the community’s new directory. I will probably go to the book club when it starts again in the fall. I have started to make friends.

In the meantime, I will enjoy the quiet and the nourishment I get from the enduring friendships that had their genesis in my working years.   These “forever friendships” were not dependent on the very intentional strategies and techniques I practiced to push myself into appearing outgoing.  Those friendships teach me that my natural self, with all its introversion, is enough.  I’m enough to fit into the hearts of those people I love. 

So what do you think?  How do you forge new relationships in a new life?  How do you balance friendship and introversion?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative,  you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Thanks for letting me fit in with you!

Terri 🙂