On being a shy extrovert

"Vulnerability is [...] having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome." -- Brené Brown

Last week I wrote about feeling weary of feeling lonely. The writing of it was very hard to tease out, but - and I keep discovering this - as I pushed though things and disciplined myself to just write (without pressure to publish but just for the sake of doing it), I felt a lot lighter.

I'm not sure what came over me the day after that but in a moment of boldness I later posted on the Year of Creativity Facebook group (and y'all know I do not use Facebook) to introduce myself for the first time (3 months into the year!) and I decided to share my blog. (Many of the ladies have already shared their blogs, published articles, social media accounts, other projects, etc.)

I had yet to speak up on the group and so, in typical me fashion, I typed with trepidation. I couldn't help but share that I'm an Ennegram 6, and that I was thus afraid that publicly sharing my blog would cause me to stop writing.

I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of responses, the encouragement to keep going, and the reassurance that I am not alone.

Apparently I had been keeping these feelings of despair to myself because I didn't want to be a burden to other people. I didn't even want to put the words to paper because I felt like I deserved to feel the burden of it. (Such is the insidious nature of isolation, whether self-imposed or not.)

But now I wonder if the truest form of opening up isn't burdensome to others, but is instead an opportunity for others to see me as I am. It doesn't demand but rather gently invites.

The same evening after I took that step to share myself in internet land, I spontaneously invited two of my neighbors and their kids over to play in our yard after dinner. To my delight, they responded with quick and eager yesses.

The chill had let up a bit as the day had progressed (as is often the case in Seattle), and I exhilarated in the thrill of having friends to chat with on the back deck as we watched the kids play on the grass and the golden glow settled on the cherry blossoms.

After they left, and we put the kids down for bed, I found myself with an unexpected energy as I tidied up the toys and cleared the kitchen.

It was a simple gathering, in which there had been no planning or food (two of my specialties) - although decaf and Bailey's was offered - but which was thoroughly satisfying for me. And while we didn't have super deep and share-all-your-darkest-secrets conversation, I was the most energized I had been in a long time.

Since that evening I've made a simple connection for me that is changing my perspective in this current season of life for me.

The connection pertains to Susan Cain's Quiet, in which the author proposes two dimensions to personality, the introversion-extroversion axis and the orthogonal axis that measures how anxious/calm or stable an individual (whether introverted or extroverted) is.

(This article, also by Cain, maps those axes to the four humors, with which I am very familiar from Stephen Ministry training, and which also explains the nuanced difference between my and David's extroversion.)

The ah-ha moment for me is that I'm an anxious or shy extrovert. (I've always joked that I'm an extroverted homebody, as in, Everybody come to me, but this categorization of Anxious really puts some legs on this thing.)

I love being with people but I dislike putting myself out there. I think this predicament is amplified by being an Enneagram 6. I am excellent at being a chameleon: I wait to see what others think first, so that I can present only the parts of myself that are congruent with them.*

(*I think this is why blogging is super scary for me, because although some close friends know every dimension and plane of me, I am wont to keep different circles of friendships in which I am a certain version of me. This supposedly is to protect me (from ostracization?), but I do it at the expense of authenticity. It sounds sad when I type this out. Sigh.

So when I tell new friends that I have a blog, I sort of cringe and think, "oh no, they are going to read something that reveals a different part of me that I'm afraid they will reject me for." And there are definitely people I want to be friends with with whom I haven't shared my blog because I am afraid of what they will think.)

Naming this disparity for myself - the fact that I get energy from people but I'm shy to be the first to put myself out there - helped me realize how I actually have more control over my life than I thought I did. I may not have control over how many deep and abiding friendships I can secure (intentionally clingy word choice there), but I can take a simple step (which may or not be related) which is to get my extroverted needs met. This - at its simplest - means to to make plans with people, spend time with them, go out and find people. So adultish, but yes, it is, after all, my responsibility to get my needs met.

For when I feel energized I am a more interesting person which ultimately reinforces my efforts to develop deeper community.

So I guess my goal now is to be aware (and accepting) of my need to be with people (just as I respect and support introverts I know who need alone time to recharge) and, with self-compassion, support myself in the quest to fill my days with more friend time. Sounds like a plan, right? (Insert self-five.)

P.S. I just read the chapter in Quiet on Asian-Americans which discusses my hometown Cupertino and even mentions my high school (!). It made me wonder if I have not adjusted my introvert-extrovert scale to a different culture outside of the Bay.

P.P.S. If anyone else is reading Quiet, I hope you'll comment below and/or text me your thoughts. So far, I'm enjoying it, but also struggling with the lack of differentiation between being introverted and being quiet. I know she tries to bring up that point (and I mention this with the two axes above) but I still think that the analysis is confounded by a subtle confluence between extroversion and expressiveness. I struggle to believe that America or the West is actually necessarily more extroverted than other cultures, but rather that expressiveness and boldness and individualism are elevated in this culture. I don't believe extroversion and expressiveness are the same thing. Anyhoo, maybe I'm misreading this or projecting on it too much.

P.P.P.S. I'd love your comments! Being a grown up means I can "ask for what I want and honor the response" (Richo, How To Be An Adult). Well, this extroverted Enneagram 6 thrives on feedback so I would love to hear from you. :) Thanks, as always, for reading. This is such a good exercise for me, to write and then to be brave by sharing. Thank you so much for being here.

Against the current

Lately I've been feeling fried and scattered and not in my groove.

It helps to be reminded that I have a one- and three-year-old who for some reason just don't get that my goal every day is to feel on top of things. I stay at home so I should be able to get tons of housework and cooking done on the regular, right?

But really, with two rapscallions who love to undo everything I do, sometimes I wonder why I even try.

I am trying to remember to "capture the moments" that make it "all worth it" - the snuggles, the funny things they say, and even the mischievous looks and grins.

However, that can be hard during days (or weeks) when the bright moments seem outweighed by the hard moments - constant crying that cannot be mitigated or reasoned with, broken glass from a frame knocked off the shelf, middle-of-the-night wake ups (from the 3yo and not the baby, mind you), and the pain I feel in my lower back and hips from so much carrying of these thirty-five and twenty-pound lovely lumps.

The weather is still fluctuating here in the Pacific Northwest and spring has not yet decided that it's ready to pull off its winter covers. I wish my mood weren't so determined by the pattern of the sun and the clouds, that I had the strength to push through the grey and get my kids (and myself) out on days that are gloomy and wet.

On those dark days, I feel as though I'm swimming against the current.

I wrote a list of things to make sure I'm staying on top of the bare minimum self-care items, but I feel the need for even more yet, and I'm not sure what I can do. Is it just restlessness from a long winter?

(Practically, I'd love a project, or a class, or someone to do something with. If anyone else is in this same boat of needing to do something with someone, like a book club or other project, please let me know!)

I was telling a friend yesterday how vulnerable it feels to be as extroverted as I am, to feel like my threshold for friendship and social interaction greatly exceeds the reality of my current situation.

Though I'm eager to find a solution to the inquietude and my frequent feelings of loneliness, sometimes I wonder if it's good just to name it, that longing and yearning for something more. Being a very pragmatic person, I have a hard time sitting still in unsettling situations. In my heart I know there can be more (more community, more depth). But perhaps my call right now is to find peace in the midst of circumstances that refuse to change and that are as stubborn as is this Seattle winter.

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On a totally different note, here is a special peak into my W-E-I-R-D brain. We visited a different church last Sunday and when I was headed to the restroom, I passed a door that was labeled "Mop Room." Before I could help myself, my brain went to this random place. I wondered to myself, "What if, instead of being a 'Mop Room' it was actually the MOPS Room, and when you opened it, a bunch of Moms of Preschoolers popped up and yelled, 'Supplies!'"

I hope you're not too embarrassed to still be my friend.

Designing my blog

After writing and publishing that last post, I felt great (awesome comments/discussion too!) but nowhere nearer to a satisfactory solution for structuring this blog.

It was a gift, then, that Designing Your Life showed up in my queue on Overdrive, because the concepts raised in the book addressed the questions that have been rising up in my soul.

Using the principles taught in the Design School at Stanford, Burnett and Evans talk about how to design your life. (I mentioned in a previous post on vocation that I once took a course with Dave Evans at Berkeley.)

I think the biggest takeaway so far is that there isn't one life waiting to be discovered and lived by me; in fact, there may be multiple lives that want to live through me.

It could appear a little haunting, but I'm trying to see it as freeing. I am totally the person who (as far as I can tell) was not made for a specific vocation. However, I am so used to thinking in terms of goals, teleology, and so this free-floating that is happening nowadays kind of freaks me out.

This blog is such a reflection of my life; I want to structure it, organize it, but that wouldn't be me. It won't let me rein it it. Simultaneously, I want to hide, and not show people my real self because I feel completely un-put together. But something keeps telling me to come back.

I am re-reading Big Magic, trying not to be freaked out by the question, "Do you have the courage to bring for this work [i.e., the creative life]? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes" (7).

I think I struggle more with faith than I do courage. It's not so much about bravery for me, I'm willing to do a lot of stupid things. But I do struggle to believe that there's a purpose for what I'm doing.

The hardest thing for me is to act on those still, tiny feelings when I don't have everything lined up in a row first.

Even with this blog, when I first re-launched it with my thirty day project, I had no idea where I was going, but when I completed it, I was pretty darn proud of what was unearthed.

Theo discovered a "treaded tractor" in the shadow of the couch plus some other random object that was there. 

In Designing Your Life, the authors explain how designers use prototypes, trying not to be too committed to one idea (and certainly not the first idea that comes up), and hoping that if it fails, that it fails fast so you can move to the next one.

I have been 99% consistent with once-weekly blog posts since the close of my thirty day project, and I think I'm ready to increase my output to two posts per week. Perhaps one of them will be the so-called scheduled type post that follows a more traditional pattern (e.g., kid updates, fun lists, photos, etc.) and the other will be open-ended (scary! wonderful!), as has been my wont.

(Does that just totally fit my personality or what? Rules and rule-breaking. Oh my gah I'm so predictable.)

The other random tidbit from the book is the difference between engineering and designing. The authors purport that when approaching your life from a design stance, you don't focus on the problems, but on the people. The best design is done with empathy and consideration for the people the designed thing will ultimately be for.

(Elizabeth, I'm totally all ears for your thoughts on design! :D)

So I'm trying to apply that to my life/blog. How can I design a life/blog that really serves me? What would that even look like?

I seriously have no idea.

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(Can I blog about how writing this blog post about blogging - and the previous one too - made me feel 5238947329427 times better about my angst? This is so bizarre, and I'm trying to pay attention to this pattern. When I sat down to write today I was like, "I hate writing. I hate this stupid commitment I made to blogging. I don't want to write. All my ideas are stupid. I am such a contradiction. Everything I thought I wanted to say is mush. No one is making me do this except myself. I want to die." And then after I do it, I feel lighter. So weird. Okay, just had to share that.)