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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

introvert

An Introvert’s Sleep Dilemma

June 29, 2016 by Gindi 1 Comment

I wrote a few weeks ago about being an extroverted introvert.

I received so many different responses, and a lot of ME TOOs, that I started thinking about some of the challenges we face and how to deliberately tackle them.

One of my biggest challenges is sleep.

Why?

This is my theory: I’m around people all day. I work with people.  I’m in meetings with people. I have conference calls with people. Sometimes, sigh, I even have to have lunches with people or go to cocktail receptions with people.  I am completely and utterly drained at work day’s end.  Then I go home.  From the second I pull into the driveway, I’m around people.  Little people who have missed me, and a big person who I love and with whom I need to converse.  So then for several more hours I am with more people.  There is no dark hole to crawl into.  It’s just people.  Everywhere. Like ants.

How does this impact my sleep?

Well, eventually everyone goes to bed. The little people finally stop popping out of their room around 9-ish (I know, I’m working on it, we put them down at 8).  My husband will head to bed around 10 and half the time I will go too.

But…

The allure of a quiet dark space with NO people is incredibly tantalizing.

I can stay up and watch a show I taped, weeks ago.

I can stay up and work on a puzzle.

I can stay up and write. I love to write late at night (if there’s any juice left).

I can stay up and read a book that ends up mesmerizing me into chapters that deliver me to a bedtime past midnight.

All that quiet. No interruptions.  Recharging my craving and need for solitude.

But…

Then I am POOPED the next morning when my alarm trills before 6 am.

My need for sleep may be entirely unrelated to my introversion. I’m just a girl who needs a lot of sleep. I realize the ship may have sailed on 8 hours, but I really do need 7 hours.

So how do you balance your need to be awake with no people with your need for sleep?

I don’t know that you completely do.  But I have a few ideas.

Turn off the radio on your commute and put down the Voxer and just regroup. Enjoy the 45 minute cocoon of silence (What? You’re not all so lucky to have almost an hour commute? Well, sit in your car on your street an extra five minutes.).

Block a couple of lunches out on your calendar every week. Get a pair of noise cancelling headphones and sit at your desk with your soup and some good tunes and just spend 30 minutes having zero conversations.  If you’re in an open concept office like me, a killer for introverts, do not make eye contact with anyone during your weekly introvert recharge.

Then give yourself one weeknight a week to blow it. Stay up and watch that show and write in your journal and read that delicious book longer than is reasonable.  You’ve earned the quiet.

And quite frankly, you need the quiet.

Filed Under: Women Tagged With: introvert

The Extroverted Introvert

June 8, 2016 by Gindi 4 Comments

quiet

I am an introvert.

I’ve been an introvert from the beginning. My mother tells tales of me playing and reading quietly in my room for hours with nary a companion as a child.  I liked it like that.

Not much has changed.

When I get up on a stage to speak, in front of a thousand or a dozen, I still feel nauseous. As a speech minor in college (a late in the game decision I made when I decided I’d go to law school), I threw up before every speech I made.  I made straight As but suffered through every class.

I comment, every now and again, to an audience or a team, that I tested as one of the most introverted people in a Myers-Briggs test administered to a board of 40 lawyers. They laugh. You’re not an introvert, they scold.

I don’t look like an introvert, I retort, but I am most certainly an introvert. 

I married an introvert.

I’m raising at least one, maybe two, introverts.

We exhibit very differently.

My husband hates parties, doesn’t enjoy talking to new people, and has a handful of friends. He prefers to be around family or by himself.

My daughter likes the ideas of parties, but they quickly overwhelm her, and she will hide behind my legs when forced to meet or talk to new, or less familiar, people.

I can speak to a thousand.  I make conversation with the people who line up during a book signing.  I have a lovely group of girlfriends.

But I still can’t walk into a room full of people I don’t know and strike up a conversation. I’ll hide in the bathroom until someone I know arrives (hopefully an extrovert).  And I’m completely drained after attending almost any event.

I love the advice given in Quiet (by Susan Cain) for those of us introverts, disguised as extroverts, who have to survive.

For those of us called to public speaking, Cain advises to minimize the stimuli before a speech.  All of those power poses and amping yourself up don’t work for an introvert whose blood is pumping and heart is racing and stomach is flipping.

My own introverted ritual before a speech is to: avoiding eating (I never have lunch at a lunch event because of my queasiness, I eat afterwards by which point I’m starving), keep water handy, pray that God will use me regardless of the topic or audience, and read a few scriptures from a series I wrote about words before I ever knew how handy they would become.

Next up, Cain recommends recharging. She warns introverts can burn out more quickly by having to act out of character – behaving as an extrovert because of our work or circumstances.  She well knows the ways introverted lawyers can burn out. She was one.

The key: find a way to recharge.  What works for you?  For me, a handful of things work wonders.  Writing and reading are always deeply restorative activities, satisfying my craving for solitude and quiet while giving an outlet for my love of words.  I’ve also come to breathe much more deeply on the porch at my husband’s family farm where I can sit still and watch the sun set.  Who knew that this lifelong city girl who used to hole up in her room to survive would come to crave the wide open space of the country?

I love that I’ve adapted to circumstances as an adult so I can engage as an extrovert when needed, but I’m proud of my introverted nature and take care to build in space for me to refuel.

How about you?  Introvert or extrovert?  How do you adapt to situations which require you to stretch beyond your comfort zone?

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: introvert

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