Real Life Reflections

A little over a month ago, I set out to go through the assignments in the book, The Highly Sensitive Person's Companion. Five blog posts later, I've found that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in this particular subject. My motivation in writing on the life of introverts is to encourage and support those blessed with this character trait. If that's not happening, I have no problem moving on. Which is exactly what I plan to do. I have several writing projects in process, and I plan to take a break from blogging to spend some time where my passion is - children's literature. Of course, if you're an introvert in need of a little encouragement or some helpful hints, please feel free to contact me by email (lgal116@gmail.com). I'd be more than happy to offer whatever support, advice, and encouragement I can!

A few years and two children after my husband and I married, we gathered in front of a TV along with my small crowd of in-laws. One of my brothers-in-law had converted a collection of home movies into the latest cutting-edge technology: VHS tapes. We watched the black and white antics of twenty-seven cousins who grew up closer than many siblings do. As the tape played, I began to marvel at my mother-in-law and her sisters. I only had two children and often enough felt like sanity was just beyond my reach. Here were three women with twenty-seven children between them. And no, they were not sweet, calm, book-loving children that never gave their parents cause for hair-tearing. They were lively, spirited, wrestling, yelling, prank-pulling, Little Rascals-worthy normal children. As one Easter, somewhere in the 1960s, scrolled across the screen, and these cherubic children in their clean, pressed, darling Easter attire paraded down the front steps of my husband's boyhood home, my marv...

I hate this week's topic: me. I don't mean that I literally hate me, but this week's Introverts Thrive assignment is to list all the attributes of your introversion that are positive. The assignment isn't to list positive attributes of introversion in general - you know, all those other introverts out there. Nope. It's to list those positive attributes of introversion that you (I) personally hold and exhibit from time to time. Ugh. Really, I've been stuck on this one for three weeks. Squirming. Writhing. Ignoring. Re-reading. Surely I misunderstood. Not a chance. Honestly, I would much prefer to make a list of the attributes of God. It would be a lot easier and more fun, but I think this exercise is important in understanding ourselves, in accepting ourselves, in loving the person God created. In order to make your list, try looking at yourself from God's perspective. Picture you and God sitting down for a chat. He starts singing to you the song from tho...

 I can be my own worst enemy. I do things that disagree with my nature, things that cause me stress. It seems rather silly, right? Okay, maybe idiotic is a better descriptor. Regardless, I still do them. Why? Good question. I'm not a psychologist, but having lived with myself for a while now, my best guess would be that it's because of the lies I've believed (which you can read about here if you missed last week's post). So what exactly do I do that makes me an enemy of me? Here are a few of them: * I spend too much time on electronic media, most notably: Facebook, emails, and Amazon. Do I really need to know what the sister of my best friend in sixth grade is up to? How many times a day is too many times to see if Airfare Watchdog has found me a cheap flight to my desired destination when, in the two years that I've been watching, they've found ZERO? And how many books can I add to my Wish List in one day (quite a few as it turns out)? * I demand of mys...

Last week, I introduced my plan to work through the exercises in a little book called The Highly Sensitive Person's Companion by Ted Zeff  (if you missed it, you can read it here) . Before we jump into our first assignment, let's talk a little bit about introverts and "highly sensitive people." There seems to be some widespread misconceptions of what it means to be an introvert. People often define it as being shy or having social anxiety or worse, being self-absorbed. These descriptions simply aren't true. Extroverts can also be shy, have social anxiety, and can definitely be self-absorbed! Simply stated, introverts are internally stimulated, and they internalize external stimuli. Virtually everything is stimulating to an introvert! To bring it home, here are a few questions to which introverts/highly sensitive people would answer yes: * Do crowds exhaust you? * Do you tend to think before acting? * Is your body sensitive to alcohol and caffeine? * Does no...

After nearly 54 years in this body, I have recently embarked on a quest to learn how to live with it in peace. Hope that this is possible began to stir in me two and a half years ago when I read, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Since reading Quiet , I've had innumerable conversations, hours of pondering, and read additional articles, blogs, and books on the subject. These have led me to an entirely new term, "highly sensitive person (HSP)." I'm not exactly a fan of that particular term because it connotes weakness, but since no one asked for my opinion, I guess I'll learn to live with it.  In contradiction to how I first perceived the term, it actually refers to someone who is hyper-sensitive to light, sound, touch, taste, and/or smell (NOT someone who is an emotional weakling). HSPs (also known as sensory-defensives), like introverts, are easily over-stimulated because of their heightened sensitivity to...

Hi. My name is Lori, and I'm a perfectionist. Over the past thirty-two years of marriage to a non-perfectionist, I have grown and softened. I've relaxed. I've learned. I am not as addicted to perfection as I once was, but it's a lifelong struggle. As you might imagine, perfectionistic tendencies can be a source of anxiety and stress. I've noticed that those of us from Perfect Country vary in what we deem as needing perfection. For me, it's my home. For the past couple of months, our weekends have been full. Add that to a full work-week, and you get the present state of my home: dirty and sporting a to-do list the likes of which makes me nauseous (almost literally). This past weekend was the doughnut hole in our busy spring/summer line-up. Other than a girls' night out on Friday night and a graduation party on Saturday night, the weekend was ours! What to do? Where to start? I tingled with the excitement of knowing that our house would soon once again be ou...