Hey introvert mamma, this post is for you...
I disappear sometimes. Not physically of
course. I have too much responsibility for that. But if you look me in
the eyes...there are days you would know that I'm shrinking...my soul is
shriveling. It has always happened to me. My mom has told me for as long as I
can remember, that I do "too much." It's my pattern. I adopt full and
busy patterns of achievement. And I always run out of energy. I'm not afraid to
slow down, anxious about boredom, or nervous about silence. Rather, it is just
a way that God has made me. That is, driven and introverted.
There is widespread misconception about
introverts. Introverts get stereotyped as quiet, snobbish, shy, hard to get to
know and most of all, not people-persons. Extroverts, by contrast, are fun,
talkative and outward. These stereotypes lead to misunderstandings and
mislabeling by others and also by ourselves. Some people assume that introverts
truly have less to say and are on some level less interesting than the more
outward counterparts...but there it is again, the tendency to see only
extroverts as outward. It is this one mis-conception that would cause most
people to mis-label me as an extrovert. In the past year, I have been
learning about Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the tendencies that come
with the 8 letters that identify different preferences related to personality
types of people. There is always a danger of putting people in boxes when using
diagnostic type personality profiles. However, with proper use of
something like the MBTI and regular reminders that no personality type is identical
to another (even when letters match), these types of indicators can be helpful
to understand general personal tendencies and lead to greater self-awareness.
It has been a really helpful exercise to raise my own sense of awareness of how
I operate in my relationships with others (family, friends, co-workers, the
team I lead, my boss).
One of the most helpful things I have
learned is how important it is for introverts to find a way to re-charge. As
Jeremie Kubicek puts it, extroverts are solar powered and introverts are
battery powered. While extroverts re-charge by being with people (this too has
a limit for most), introverts re-charge by plugging in. This means retreating
to an internal world which can be sleep, exercise, a great book, a quiet trip to
Target (alone)...or pretty much any life-giving (fairly solitary) activity. And
here is the kicker, introverts need to do this every single day.
One of the books I read this year is
called 5
Gears. The topic of the book is how to be present with people while
maintaining productivity. One of the bedrock principles of this book is that in
order to be both present and productive, I must be charged every day. If I
think about my emotional/spiritual/intellectual capacity as a cell-phone
battery, I have to plug myself in...every single day, just like I do my phone.
The author argues that it would be lunacy to get mad at our cell phone and
simply demand more from a dead battery. However, this is exactly what we do
with our souls. No matter if you are a stay at home mom or a leave to work mom,
there are demands that you do it all. We are under insufferable pressure to
give to every person and every task in front of us. Therein lies the temptation
to demand more from our battery than it was designed to give.
When I was single, my under-cover
introvert survival tactics worked out well. I lived by myself and was
completely in charge of my time. Therefore, when I needed to re-charge, I
simply went home to the bliss of restorative quiet. I'm not even sure I was
consciously re-charging. It was just the way I had structured my life for as
long as I had remembered. When I was dating my husband, I remember one of the
legitimate thought processes I had about the goodness and longevity of our
relationship was that I enjoyed being with him as much as being by myself.
(Hmm, I really like this guy, and I don't ever really want him to go
away...romantic right?).
But mothering has brought about a beastly
task for me to navigate as it relates to battery management. With kids, there
seems to be no time at all for quiet. No time at all for solitary soul care. No
time for re-charge. The survival techniques that allowed me to retreat as a
single person or a young married just don't exist in the reality of motherhood.
There are always sweet little hands to hold or bottoms to wipe. There are
questions to answer and lessons to teach. There are clothes to fold and stories
to read. All the spaces that used to exist for me are taken up...with almost
all good things. It is hard to see my own soul as one that should be tended.
However, I'm looking into the tired eyes of a woman who desperately needs to
know that she has permission to refuel.
I don't have this re-charge/motherhood
thing figured out yet. And I still crash sometimes. But I know the issue and I
am finally giving myself permission to fight for my own highest good among the
priorities of my life. I know that a dead battery and hollow eyes are not a
gift I give to anyone. And I'm learning to give myself permission to care for
me so I can be a present kind of mamma that I want to be. Maybe someone else
needed to read this too. Go ahead introverted mamma, plug-in to a life-giving
space, you are worth the investment.
