July has totally gotten by me. I was doing another job, my theatre job and it absorbed a lot of my energy and shook it all about! It taught me a lot too. I moved to the Seattle area March 2014 and I'm still in transition, looking for a community of my own. I work for a local theatre that has really long runs and not all the crew work the entire run. I only work the second part of the run and close it. Since I'm an introvert this is a difficult position for me. Everyone already knows everyone else. They have gotten into their routines and patterns and here I come the last 4 weeks and I have to blend in. Blending in isn't so hard, I wear black I've actually been stepped on, I blend in so well...but when you are still new to an area and trying to get to know people it is difficult to feel apart of the group and not invisible or on the outside looking in. I have an easier time with this on the smaller shows but this was a big musical and as usual it took me all four weeks to get comfortable. In fact I didn't sleep much the first two weeks. Now don't get me wrong, no one was mean or snobby, but when you've just learned your track on a show, trying not to forget anything, you are surrounded by people you don't know, coordinating with what you are hearing to what you are trying to remember (the sounds make my cues, when I hear something and am in the same spot where I always hear it,I know I'm remembering correctly) AND you are an introvert you get sensory overload! It's like the stress on your brain of living in a big city not knowing anyone. This happened to me big time this July. I used to get grumpy and depressed when overloaded. And while there were touches of this I was able to stay on the whole rather positive. Until the sleep deprivation started to get to me one night, but I waited until after the show to show it!
What still continues to happen though is my communication centers shut down. If I'm taking care of business...not a problem I get the message out. But if it's just conversation? Forget it. My brain can't do it. It thinks of things an hour or two after I get home! (Sorry to the people who had to hear it late at night!) But on the spot talking doesn't happen. By week four this is letting up and I'm much more comfortable with people, however that is when the show ends! Then there is dealing with the loss. Even though I'm tired and ready to move on from the show I'm just starting to talk to people and that makes things very difficult to wrap up. I imagine this is fairly common for most introverts. Maybe there are some introverts who wouldn't make that much effort because they don't want to meet people. But being in a new town makes this more challenging to transition in and out of these shows. It probably helps that I recognize what is going on, but let me tell you it's still hard to take. What I've also learned is I have to release that energy, the energy of frustration, separateness, the effort to connect with the people I find interesting, feeling like I've failed at basic interaction, and I'm sure a lot of other thoughts and feelings of which I'm not fully aware! To release them you have to feel them. You have to recognize them as energy, as flowing and not let them get stuck. This has been my work this week. The transition back into my own energy really. Now the trick I want to work on is not transitioning out of my energy in the first place and to lessen the sensory overload. As I learn more and more about my energy circulation this will come to me. Wearing quartz does help! I learned that. I believe the key, like with many low emotions, is to stop the overload before it happens. Once you are in it it is difficult to focus your energy to get out of it, because your energy is scattered with being in overload. SO exercises to stay in my energy at the start of these shows and other social adventures is what I will be working on before October's next show!
This is the introvert energy...let's find ways to deal with it better!
What still continues to happen though is my communication centers shut down. If I'm taking care of business...not a problem I get the message out. But if it's just conversation? Forget it. My brain can't do it. It thinks of things an hour or two after I get home! (Sorry to the people who had to hear it late at night!) But on the spot talking doesn't happen. By week four this is letting up and I'm much more comfortable with people, however that is when the show ends! Then there is dealing with the loss. Even though I'm tired and ready to move on from the show I'm just starting to talk to people and that makes things very difficult to wrap up. I imagine this is fairly common for most introverts. Maybe there are some introverts who wouldn't make that much effort because they don't want to meet people. But being in a new town makes this more challenging to transition in and out of these shows. It probably helps that I recognize what is going on, but let me tell you it's still hard to take. What I've also learned is I have to release that energy, the energy of frustration, separateness, the effort to connect with the people I find interesting, feeling like I've failed at basic interaction, and I'm sure a lot of other thoughts and feelings of which I'm not fully aware! To release them you have to feel them. You have to recognize them as energy, as flowing and not let them get stuck. This has been my work this week. The transition back into my own energy really. Now the trick I want to work on is not transitioning out of my energy in the first place and to lessen the sensory overload. As I learn more and more about my energy circulation this will come to me. Wearing quartz does help! I learned that. I believe the key, like with many low emotions, is to stop the overload before it happens. Once you are in it it is difficult to focus your energy to get out of it, because your energy is scattered with being in overload. SO exercises to stay in my energy at the start of these shows and other social adventures is what I will be working on before October's next show!
This is the introvert energy...let's find ways to deal with it better!
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