This past week has been full of self-realizations and observations of the people around me. Oh wait, that's no different than any other week but I guess this week my confusion was encompassed by the acceptance and disapproval of people in our lives and how it can affect our own personal happiness.
Extrovert or Introvert? That is the question...or more so the topic.
This thought came up earlier this week as I was wandering through the internet on my phone. I have heard these two words before but never really grasped the idea, most likely due to not taking the dive into the depths of information on the ever so wondrous world wide web. Where else would I learn about it ? Well, I finally did and it has helped me to understand myself a whole lot and others as well, which is always helpful in trying to live symbiotically with others and maintaining a happy state. So, I'll fill you in on a little of what I have learned and also applying it has helped to give me a whole new perspective.
First introduced by the psychologist Carl Jung, the traits extrovert-introvert are a central dimension of human personality theories. According to Jung, introversion is "an attitude type characterized by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents." (focus on one's inner psychic activity) Pretty much an introvert gains their strength and energy by spending time alone, content in their thoughts and lost in their creative minds. Lost in a good way though. They usually gravitate towards the arts and prefer to have a few close friends and would rather talk about meaningful topics rather than just talking to talk aka "small talk." Being in large groups of people with a lot of activity and emotions going on can really drain an introverts energy leaving them tired and perhaps a little on edge. And then there are the extroverts, "an attitude characterized by concentration of interest on the external object." (the outside world) Extroverts are almost the exact opposite of introverts, gaining their strength and energy from other people and real life situations. They find pleasure by placing themselves in large social gatherings such as parties and community events. This is how they gain their energy and also how they prefer to exude it. Being alone can be very tiresome and boring for an extrovert. Okay, so introverts and extroverts, pretty simple concept and once fully understood
it can allow you to accept yourself and can also play a big part in accepting others that you normally cannot get along with simply because you receive and give energy in different ways.
I discovered that I am most definitely an introvert and it helped me to understand why sometimes I just flat out did not want to be around anyone because I was too tired from "socializing". I'd like to think that I am a pretty social person and I love going out with friends and going to parties but it never dawned on me that doing all that and being around a lot of people was actually emotionally and physically draining me. There would be days where I was just so tired and didn't want to be around anyone else but myself just so that I could recuperate. It wasn't from lack of sleep either, I thought it was so bizarre and I would fight it and try to keep up with the outside world. That just made it worse and resulted in me acting like a grumpy toddler who hasn't had their daily nap. It wasn't fun. After reading about introverts it helped me to realize that I really do need to be alone a lot of the time for my own personal health and well-being and should not feel guilty for turning down going out to socialize. I now know that you can't force yourself to be someone you are not and it's okay to do things for yourself because in the end, it is you and only you walking around in your body in this world. No one else, just you. So naturally, being around people who gain energy from large groups of people and constant attention to one self can really be a challenge for me sometimes. I never understood them. They came off as obnoxious and arrogant to me. After reading about this whole new concept of personality theories, I began to apply it in my everyday life and related it to my interactions with others and it has given me a whole new perspective ! Life actually presented itself with an opportunity to apply what I had learned and it helped me to see things more clearly. Always a good thing. The opportunity came about when I had met one of my roommate's friends, she was staying for a couple days. I usually always like people and always try and accept them but she was becoming increasingly hard to like as the night went on. She was loud. She talked about herself incessantly and had an act to go along with everything she said. She was overwhelming and it got to the point where I had to leave the room to be alone for some time. In that time, I reflected back on what I had learned and I soon realized that she was in fact 100% of the extrovert nature and instead of despising her and having these negative feelings towards her and also myself for feeling that way I just simply saw her for who she was and accepted everything about her. It was a huge relief and weight off my shoulders because now I was able to interact with her, in short bouts of course. I ended up coming out of my room and admitting to her that she was a lot for me to take in and it felt nice to come clean about how I felt. I talked to her about introverts and extroverts and continued to describe my nature to her. We instantly bonded and both felt comfortable just talking to one another. All because I simply reached out to her and cleared the confusion through acceptance of things that we cannot change.
Not only does it help you to understand yourself, it helps to understand other people and I believe that is equally just as important. I'll admit, I have trouble truly accepting people for all of who they are and I think we can all agree that this is a chronic problem in today's society. Refusing a person for who they are causes all sorts of bad feelings and who wants bad feelings toward another person and even worse them having those feelings towards you. I sure as hell don't, that's no fun and to think it's all because they don't understand the true you and the way you give and receive energy. We are all different and to instantly refuse someone because you don't like the way they talk or the way they live just makes you entirely ignorant. I'm probably the worst at this because I'm constantly looking into the way people act and trying to understand the way they do the things they do or say the things they say.I'm guilty ! Totally guilty and it is something that has been a real nuisance in my life, something that I can now say has been happily resolved. Maybe not entirely because being perfect is pretty impossible but being aware of your actions can make a world's difference.. Everyone knows you have to accept people for who they are but it all comes back to YOU. Before you can accept other people you first have to fully and lovingly accept yourself first. It always comes back to YOU because remember it's your life. No one else's, pretty cool huh.
I'm not saying you have to go out there and force yourself to get along with everyone. That is just never going to happen, at least in this world. Just accept them for who they are, send love their way and hope they pull their head out of their ass someday. In the mean time, always make sure to love yourself first !
