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Continuing on the anti-depressant journey

9/2/2018

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Here we are again with another update. I hope these are helpful to someone. 
I'm actually feeling really great! I love my part time job at a Vet hospital. I love greeting the animals! I feel like my brain is working better. And I've actually busted through the weight plateau I've been on for a long time and started to loose some! Hoping that continues!
The observation of note for this blog is that I feel like my brain is kicking in again; the first sign I noticed is when I'm trying to help others organize and remember things. I'm doing good at work keeping reminders going and helping the doctors. And I did good this week helping my sister work through and remember things on her long to do list. So I found it really interesting that that is where my clarity lies. Hoping it will trickle into my life and what I need to remember and I think it will. I have some projects I'm working on at home and cleaning. This weekend I've even done food prep for the week.  And last night I had a real long list of grateful/joy moments to list in my gratitude journal.
I've also been taking a 12 hour Aleve in the evening to help my achy body at night and more vitamin D.
So all in all there are some great things happening to get me out of the fog and malaise I've been experiencing for so long! If you've had any of these type feelings look into some of these things. I really think there is a way to feel better!
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It's been two weeks

8/19/2018

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I was told it takes 2 weeks for the anti-depressant to kick in so to speak.  It has  been two weeks.
I am feeling good. I like my new job. I've finally gotten to foster a kitten, second one will be picked up tomorrow. I have some long sought sewing projects under way. I'm working to get meditation back on a daily basis. And I'm setting aside time to read every day.
Many of these things are just things I like to do when I'm not drained by my theatre job though. So how much of it is not working my theatre job and how much is it the anti-depressant kicking in?  I'm not sure.
One of the key things for me is my fatigue and brain fog. And again working one job instead of two is always going to be less fatiguing, however, I'm not bubbling with energy either. I have been very mindful to not do anything too long, so that I don't overwhelm my system. I'm doing a larger variety of things but not for long periods of time. This works well for me. As to the brain fog I think that is improving. I have not had significant instances of memory failure and at my new job I am often keeping track of multiple tasks at once and staying on top of it for the most part.
As I read online there is a large time frame for the anti-depressant to take affect. So monitoring my energy levels seems to be the best way to know how it is going.
One key thing that has really made me feel good lately is taking the time while I go to sleep and wake up to visualize the life I want. I'm a visual person anyway but seeing what I want happening is a great boost.  Those times between wakeful hours and sleeping hours are really good to let the better feeling sink in.
I think next I will look into Introverts and depression to see some of the theories as to why so many introverts are affected by this.
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It's been a while...but here is some things to share

8/5/2018

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It's been a while I know. I have had a hard time knowing what to write and focus on. I have struggled with my path for over 20 years. Not very good at this adult-ing thing. And in that time I have had a lot of aches, pains, and ongoing fatigue that just clouds my brain and energy that I've allowed to get in my way. I've talked to doctors several times about it and nothing was discovered physically. I try to do meditations and tapping which are good for short bursts but I have a hard time staying focused because of this fatigue. This last year has gotten worse - the fatigue, the body pain, the brain fog - so I brought it up to my current doctor. We did the standard blood tests, we talked about hormones and introversion and her conclusion was that I suffer from a subtle depression with social isolation and so she is starting me on anti-depressants. 
This all spoke to me in terms of what a lot of introverts go through so I thought I'd blog about my experience in case that helps anyone else out there. Our brains are so powerful they can create physical reactions to stress, trauma, and just being in survival mode for so long. This of course is just my experience and my thoughts, if anything rings true for you please talk to your doctor!  I think you'd be surprised how many of them are also introverts. Also find a doctor with which you do feel comfortable talking. This was a big thing for me! I like my doctor, she's easy to talk to and relates to the whole introvert thing because she is too. As a bonus the clinic has eCare so I can see results, email questions, make appointments without having to make phone calls - an introvert plus.
I have just started the anti-depressants. She wants me on an SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor). I think of it like retraining my body to recognize and use serotonin (It is believed to help regulate mood and social behavior, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire and function. ~Medical News Today). I just started and it takes a few weeks to kick in. My hope is to have some results and experiences that you all can relate to if I can keep up with the blogging. My doctor feels this anti-depressant will help me focus and get a step up so that I can take over from there.
That morning, before I saw her, I was thinking "I know I need to get into a higher energy flow to attract the higher energy flow things I want and need in life, but it's a catch 22.  If I just had a way to get a step up, see some progress...." I can make things better!
Please comment, share, or ask questions if there is something you want to know or express.
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Yes, I’m an Introvert. No, I’m not Shy.

10/31/2017

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Introvert, extrovert, shy, genial, over-thinker, unreserved, inward, outward, listener, sociable, sensitive, exhibitionist, loner, open, wallflower, life of the party, brooding, gregarious, INTP, ISFJ, ENFJ, ESTP...Ahhh!  These are synonyms for introvert and extrovert but do they tell the whole story?  What is an introvert (and therefore an extrovert too)?  Many in the past have just figured introverts were shy and they should just buck up and get over it.  Or they have social anxiety and there is something wrong with them.  Others have claimed introversion is an energy or mental block that we can release and overcome.  If you look at the synonyms many of the ones for introvert have negative connotations and vice versa for extrovert!  All this has frustrated me for years but it’s only been in the past few that I’ve been able to make some headway. Finally, with Susan Cain’s book Quiet and her lovely TED talk I’ve gotten some real science and understanding.  But I can tell you...we don’t all understand this in ourselves!  And there are many varieties.

I’m an introvert and as the sign says...I’m not shy!  I’ve been spending more time in introvert Facebook groups, blogs, and podcasts trying to see as a trained life coach how I can help introverts as well as continuing to clarify this for myself.  And one of the things I’ve noticed is we don’t know what an introvert really is or what our particular brand of introvert looks like.  We’ve identified with a label but surprisingly for a group that is often in our heads we don’t stop to figure out the intricacies and how this label actually fits us.  Or not.  We accept the label realizing we have figured something out, but do we go deeper?  By just picking out a label do we help ourselves or do we limit ourselves.

I look at introversion/extroversion in terms of how energy is processed.  Introvert’s first reaction to any stimulus is to first go inward, and extroverts to go outward.  How long they stay there is determined by the individual.   And this aspect can be regulated with learned skills so that the time frame can be shortened or lengthen depending on need.  Because of this introverts may often take longer to respond to a stimulus and this is why we often find them quiet, reflective, not fond of small talk, and sensitive to the quantity of stimuli coming at them.  You could say Don’t worry about walking a mile in my shoes, just try a day thinking in my shoes!  I love that! Extroverts who naturally move outward first can be more spontaneous, reactive, and switch from stimuli to stimuli so fast it gives the illusion that they can do many things at once.  They can be quite easy to be around too, if you are a people watcher you can be quietly entertained in the corner!  Both have their strengths, it’s just the processing of the energy that is different.

This is where society and our labels fail us.  When a society favors one side of the spectrum over the other, we loose human resources.  When we accept a label but don’t figure out how it truly fits us, we loose human resources.  In western society we favor the extrovert.  Forcing anyone to work the same way that is best for some is never a great plan!  We’ve lost sight of the fact that each individual has something to bring to the table.  Maybe you have one person who is great at ideas, one who is good at finding out how that idea is really going to work (or not), one who is good at the execution of the idea, and one who is good at reevaluating and perfecting it.  That’s 2 “introverts” and 2 “extroverts” and none of them are the same.  However, if none of them have taken the time to know themselves or their strengths, if they are all trying to be the brilliant idea person, the rest doesn’t get done.

Like everything in the world this seemingly binary labeling is actually a spectrum and so I’m happy to also add the term ambivert.  One who falls in the middle of these two terms sharing qualities of each.  There are so many other stops along this spectrum!  Most of us are in the middle somewhere!  I encourage people to find your place on the spectrum.  How do you process different stimuli?  Find your strengths and step out of your comfort zone now and then.  Be the best you that you can be and leave the binary thinking behind.

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Be mindful of your surroundings...especially in transitional times!

10/16/2016

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I've started a new job at a school teaching Theatre.  I'm just part time but I'm finding many challenges.  One of the big ones is how much energy is drained from me.  Now after a month plus, I'm starting to balance out a bit but this first month was really a struggle.  New job, new people, state expectations, a different school culture than I'm used to, middle schoolers!...It's been difficult.  But I think my coaching has helped me.  I know to take the down time I need.  Even though my inner hermit wants me to stay away from people I'm spending time with others at the school to get into the culture.  And most of all I know that my own perspective and attitude are what will change things the fastest and help me adapt.  
New jobs can be very daunting for introverts.  The job hunting process alone is miserable.  Interviews are like first dates!  Yuck!  But also once you've gotten the job, adjusting yourself to the new routine, the new energy flow, are all things that take time and it's important that you allow yourself that time.  
It's also important for those sensitive introverts to be careful what they are feeding themselves in terms of entertainment!  I have been working really hard via all the streaming options to catch up on shows that I always wanted to watch but never did.  And the show I was catching up on during this time of new-job-transition was Alias.  A wonderfully written and dynamically performed show but it was too dark for this transitional time!  Now that I'm watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch my transitioning is going much smoother.  So think in terms of how you react to different genre when you are relaxing at night and allowing your energy to calm to it's usual pattern.  It may just be television/movie/book/music but entertainment is escapism.  And when you are escaping from a challenging time during the day be mindful of what you are escaping to!  These things effect your energy, this is why we like them!  But it is not always something we are consciously deciding.
​Be mindful of the environment you choose for yourself, especially during these transitional times.
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Why I'm no longer comfortable in Church

6/14/2016

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Let me start by saying this is not meant to convince anyone of anything.  Everyone must find what resonates with them.  This is what resonates with me.
I write this because I was brought up going to Sunday School and Church every Sunday.  If I wanted to spend the night at a friend’s house Saturday night I had to go to church somewhere the next morning or I couldn’t go.  It is something that is important to my family and it resonates with them.  However, it increasingly doesn’t with me and recently for the first time I addressed this with my mom and my sister.  I honor what they believe and for years I’ve gone to make my family happy and because it gave me a chance to sing but it has become increasingly frustrating and unfulfilling and here is why…
First off as a history major it is distressing to me to hear people talking about the Bible as a historic record.  It is a book of faith and not historically accurate.  Often people try to support their faith by citing the Bible as historical and that just doesn’t work.  The more I learn, starting in college as a history major up to now as I am learning and expanding in the Universal Laws getting my coaching certification, etc. the more I find organized religions narrow and limiting.  I will keep my comments to my experience I’m not a religious expert but all that I have learned about and experienced seems to follow some similar trends.  (I do try and learn about other religions.)  There are labels, and focuses on legitimizing.  Judgement and in more extreme cases wrath and punishment.  Now of course the more extreme cases are the exceptions.  But even in a loving church there is a narrowness that I find dampens my spirit instead of lifts it.  I was brought up in a church that says either the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed every Sunday and I can’t really say that in good conscious.  Here is a version and I will explain my frustration with each line.
1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: Creator God is fine, heaven and earth is limiting, Creation is all the galaxies, all the Universe, every microbe, everything!!!!  This power that created EVERYTHING is in EVERYTHING and Connects everything!  We need to think more like a Jedi, the force is everywhere connecting everything.  
And male?  Really?
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: Here is the part where we have to prove Jesus existed, he was human and God and our Savior.
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:  Human and God...
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: Amazing fact of history?  What has it to do with his life and teachings?
5. The third day he rose again from the dead: Defeated death?  What is so bad about death?  It’s part of the cycle of all creation and rebirth, still harping on the Human and God bit which, to me is not what Jesus was about, we are all created from Source (I feel “God” takes us back to that antiquated thinking about a puppeteer controlling our destiny and punishing) and are human.
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:  Why must heaven be a place for rulers and separate from us, distant and not with us, in us, part of us just as the creative power is.  And honestly, it doesn’t really matter if Jesus lived or not, or that he died!  The point should be he taught love, he taught: so you do to the least of these you do to me.  Why is that important?  Because that creating power is within all of us…. The word became flesh and dwelt among us...not just the birth of Jesus but every single thing that has ever been created and born.  He wants us to know God with us, Divine within us, we are one, we are love, we are the front wave of creation to be...not whether or not he had a birth certificate.  And why do we need someone to save us?  From what? The creation that is from the Source of all Creation?  All we need to do is recognize that it dwells within us.  There is nothing wrong with being helped or even saved but it has led to people distancing themselves from that amazing power that is within us.  Or waiting for a rescue.  It takes away that divine power that we were born with.
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:  Judgement...fear mongering!  There really is nothing worse.  Fear is the lack of power.  Love is the abundance of power.  Again the wrong focus compared to his teachings.
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost: I kinda like the Holy Spirit but it gets brushed aside often as un-explainable.
9. I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints: See already onto a new subject, poor Holy Spirit, where Jesus gets a whole paragraph legitimizing him as the real deal and not even mentioning his teachings.  Universal (catholic) church...not with all these creative beings coming from just as many perspectives.  Saints? Got me.
10. The forgiveness of sins: Sin?  I don’t believe in sin.  The Creator made us this way, we are part of the creation, we won this spot for this time on earth to expand the creation.  Errors are to be learned from.  And fear and judgement stifles creation yet the church uses it.  It is nonsensical.
11. The resurrection of the body: More interested in the spirit than the body.  You can’t destroy energy it just changes form, so if I decide to come back to this plane I’ll get a new body...if I don’t I’ll go on in the vast consciousness of spirit.  Again I think this just promotes a fear of death, and thus a fear of the natural cycle of energy.
12. And the life everlasting. Amen. This I don’t mind, energy is everlasting, so be it!
I know not everyone is going to see it this way.  But this is how I see it.  This is what I’ve come to understand and believe.  So much of what the church holds onto was created by humans to make it understandable to them, but it made it understandable to them 2000+ years ago.  We’ve grown and learned and discovered since then and yet the church hasn’t updated or change much at all.  Why are numbers dwindling at churches on Sunday, perhaps that is why!
I’ve enjoyed a service at a Universalist Unitarian church.  It is more about the teachings of love and growth of spirit within us all than about whose religion is correct.  But I also don’t really miss having a group gathering to worship together by not attending church.  Maybe it is the introvert in me, gatherings of people are draining not uplifting, and so maybe I don’t feel the spirit as well that way.  I feel much more connection to Source in meditation with a cat purring on my lap and walking on the Soul Plane with other souls than I do in a room full of people following some ritual.  
We should be about showing our love to others.  Listening to our fellow spirits.  Creating and expanding our thinking.  Supporting and encouraging our young and our planet.  It doesn’t have to be a big movement, it is in many little things we do.  If you learn to do all that in church, more power to ya!  It doesn’t work for me.
I don’t know, maybe this still won’t make sense to my family.  I don’t even know that they will read it.  But since trying to express myself this has been rattling around in my head.  You know an introvert works over and over again a previous conversation, perfecting it in their mind.  This was my way of finishing the processing to move on.




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May 28th, 2016

5/28/2016

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I've created a survey to better see the Introvert need for Life Coaching...or not.  Go to the contacts page on my site or click here.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8DZNNFR
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Foundation of Yeses

5/12/2016

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With the world as busy as it is and Introverts valuing their time and energy, let's consider what our Foundation of Yeses is!  
In other words what have you committed to say yes to?  What is most important to you?  Family, Career, Love, Travel...?  What are the things you won't give up?  Make a list and post it with your calendar.  When you are asked to take on more, when you are tempted by learning or doing something else...consider if you will have to neglect these Foundational Yeses.  How many balls can you juggle?  If you can't juggle, or can only handle so many balls, then you know your answer needs to be no.  If the new thing(s) is more important than something else you have already said yes to, are you willing to let an old Yes go?
I encourage you to make your list.  Follow your bliss and learn this time management tip.  I think it will help you with decisions, time management, and overwhelm.  You are the lead player in your life, base your choices on that fact.  Be the lead player not the supporting player.  It is the only way to win the prize.
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Switching bodies

4/17/2016

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I was just on Facebook and saw a clip of Russian ballet dancers...and I thought "what would it feel like to be in a body with power, that doesn't get tired, that has that coordination and skill"...what would it feel like????  
I know that your own perspective and perception is how our world is flavored.  I think it is only natural to want to compare.  And I think it is healthy to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes".  What if we discovered it doesn't feel all that different from our own bodies?  What if we learn that everyone feels this way in the morning?  What if we would see there isn't any difference after all (or very few)?  A man could feel what it is like to be a woman and vice versa.  I really would like to experience someone else's body.  Maybe I could let go of some of my own uncertainties.  If nothing else I would know what it feels like so that I could strive for that feeling again in my own body, or not.
It is a common recommendation for us to try to think from someone else's perspective so that we can understand when we are in conflict.  What progress we could make if we could switch homes of our spiritual essence to reside in someone else's body for a time.  Where is the magic for this spell?
I know all the villains of the world would want to take advantage of this, but it would still be nice to experience for so many reasons.
What are your thoughts?  Have you ever felt this way?
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Look up!

4/10/2016

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I just had an interesting experience at the grocery store.  The Check-out Clerk didn't look up.  She started her scanning and bagging without even looking up at me.  I had reusable bags in my hand which she didn't see so I had to stop her bagging and tell her to please use my bags.  So she picks the biggest bag and just starts shoving things in as she scans them.  Now I walked to the store, my list wasn't long and I live a block away.  I purposely brought bags that would go over my shoulders well.  One of which was a denim bag to handle the heavy stuff.  Now I hadn't intended to, but ended up finding a frozen turkey breast.  So I stopped her again and said wait, please put the heavy things in the denim bag.  She was confused and didn't know which items those where....it goes on, but the whole experience was her in a zombie state.  
It's no wonder zombies are so popular now, that is what we've become.  We just go through the routine.  We are checked out.  Now we both stayed polite, I wasn't upset, she didn't seem to be.  But it was fascinating to me how much smoother her job would go if she looked up and invested some attention into her surroundings and job.  No it's not the most glorious job, but I've worked a register before, people are generally happy they came and got what they needed and are now ready to leave.  I worked at a crafts store and people were also excited to tell me what they were going to do with their purchases.  But you have to look up.  It won't slow you down.  It will make your time go faster and your experience richer even if you don't like what you are doing.
Take the time to look up, focus, observe...what have you been missing????  Why have we stopped investing in our lives?  Is it really that bad?  And if it is that bad what inspiration or connections are you missing because you've checked out?
​Please join in the conversation!
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    Hey it's Karen, these are just some thoughts that help me!

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