How to Stop Performing and Show Up as You Are

It’s a practice, not a goal (isn’t that true of everything?).

When we’re showing up in the public spaces of the online world as creators and/or entrepreneurs, it’s easy to believe we need to perform. Public spaces are performative spaces (this is true of IRL spaces too!). A lot of people are playing parts; many treat it like a game. And that’s fine: it’s one way to be and you can find success that way. But for those of us who have an aversion to being performative (INFPs in particular hate it, and INFJs find it equally challenging but for different reasons), that kind of interaction leads to misery and burnout.

Unfortunately, we rarely feel that we are good enough just as we are. We operate on the assumption that performance of some kind is required for us to be accepted/acceptable.

It sucks to always feel like you have to be more or better to deserve your place at the table, doesn’t it?

What if it were as easy and simple as just showing up? Let’s say you’re invited to a potluck dinner. What if all you had to do was show up in whatever way naturally occurred? Straight from the gym, sweaty and tired. With some chicken McNuggets you only bought because you happened to drive by a McDonald’s and thought, why not, it’s convenient.

What if you sat at the table with everyone else and didn’t say a word all night because you’re tired and nothing worth saying came to mind? What if you got up halfway through, made your apologies, and left because you’d reached your sensory input limit?

What if all that was totally fine, and you didn’t have to worry at all about what people would think, whether they would still like you and invite you back?

Maybe you have friends like this, whose only desire is to have you there at the table, in whatever way you are able to show up. But when it comes to participating in a wider community, especially when we’re putting our work out into the world as creatives, things can feel very inhospitable. It’s easy to get caught up in beliefs about how we need to show up.

We need to be peppy, flashy, and outgoing.

We need to be attractive.

Our work needs to be on point, of excellent quality, engaging.

We need to speak to the zeitgeist (just speaking our truth isn’t enough).

All of these are really the same thing. They’re statements about how we need to be more and better to deserve our place at the table. We need to perform for our dinner. Last-minute chicken McNuggets aren’t going to cut it. Having a quiet night when we just don’t want to have to talk won’t get us a repeat invite.

I’m not going to lie. Those of us who are reserved, shy, introverted, and socially anxious are disadvantaged in some ways. But we have one major advantage, which is ironically the very thing that is also our disadvantage: our inclination toward authentic interaction. If we could just find a way to let go of all the pressure we put on ourselves to perform, to be in certain ways, we could relax into just being ourselves no matter how that manifests.

But how? Like most aspects of the creative life, this is a practice, not a goal. We may never get to a point where we are completely indifferent to how people react to us, but we can practice every day and get better over time. It does get easier, but only if you practice.

Here’s how I do it. It’s not anything fancy, not some brilliant hack. It’s just some basic steps. Step one is finding situations where simply showing up is enough, because this shows you what it feels like. Places where you are not called on to perform anything, and you are able to get a glimmer of what it would feel like to not be pressuring yourself all the time to be something else. You may find this in a relationship, a friend group, or an online community.

Step two is reminding yourself over and over (and over and over) that it doesn’t matter if you’re “doing it wrong.” Remind yourself of this as much as needed in places where you don’t feel as accepted, where that pressure to be more arises within you. Remind yourself that what you naturally have to offer is enough.

Step three is embracing doing it wrong. Turn that wrong into your right. After all, who’s to say it’s either wrong or right? Who has that authority? No one. Or put another way, you have as much authority as anyone else to decide what’s right (for you). Believe me when I say that it is exactly those areas where you feel you’re doing it wrong that people need to hear about!

So what if you don’t know what you naturally have to offer? What if you’ve been performing for so long, you’re a blank when it comes to who you really are? This is step four, and figuring it out is an emergent property of the practice. It will happen gradually as you learn to release the pressure you have been putting on yourself. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you discover.

When Putting Your True Self Out There Makes You Feel Anxious and Embarrassed

We all want to be liked and approved of.

For creative entrepreneurs, putting your private self into your public work is often a requirement—or at least it’s a current norm. Confessionary social media posts are in style. Being authentic and honest about your own journey, and sharing that with followers in a way that resonates with their own, is how business is done in the burgeoning creative economy.   For many, this is a challenge because it means revealing yourself in ways that feel deeply uncomfortable. This post is for those of you who are struggling with how to approach this new cultural and business expectation of a blended private/public life.

This is not a post about boundaries—that’s a worthwhile subject but one that has been widely covered elsewhere. This is about that icky feeling of anxiety mixed with embarrassment or shame that you get when you’ve revealed something about yourself publicly that feels very personal. These feelings originate in our primal fear of being rejected by the group. As one of my clients once asked me about putting my own private stories out there for public consumption: “Did anything bad happen when you did that?”

This amorphous “bad” thing that could happen if we share too much or if people see who we really are is the dark storm cloud blocking us from both delving too deeply into ourselves and putting what we excavate out there into the world. We want to be liked, approved of. This is totally normal. The problem is that after a while, being likable becomes unlikable, because it’s not real (or it’s not the whole truth). It’s boring. What we think will make us unlikeable, the stuff we keep buried and private, perhaps even from ourselves, is what provides nuance and depth to our public personalities. Think of it as a painting: you need shadow along with the light to create something with meaningful depth on the canvas.

I’m sure that sounds rather conceptual, but it’s a helpful image to keep in mind, because what people remember is that resonance they have with someone who has revealed themselves to be fully human. Part of this is the relief we feel when we realize we’re not the only screw-up in the room. Part of it is that we have a natural fascination with what in the olden days was termed a “human-interest story.”

Creative entrepreneurs may be required by the current norms of the creative economy to be their own human-interest story, but it also makes good business sense. In a world of product glut, people make purchases based on resonance, fellow-feeling, and values. It’s difficult if not impossible to offer anything truly unique these days. Every time I have a brilliant idea, a 3-second Google search shows me it’s already been done a dozen times.

What you can offer is your unique story, warts and all. Especially the warts. Just as Tolstoy says about families (all happy ones are alike, all unhappy ones are unhappy in their own way), our embarrassing, anxiety-producing quirks are what make us unique. Or to put it another way, being “good” always generally looks the same, but our secret struggles, dreams, insecurities, sorrows, and passions are what make us interesting human beings.

So has anything bad happened since I started putting all my “secret” stuff out into the world? Nothing more than the anxiety and embarrassment I tend to feel in waves. My guiding philosophy for putting anything out there is this: the way people receive your work (or you) is 100% about them, and you have 0% control over it. They’re going to judge you either way, so you might as well give them something to chew on!

You won’t ever get all the people to like you. When you start being honest, your overall approval rating probably won’t go down (and may even go up). Some people may decide they no longer like you (remember, this is all about them—perhaps they hate your honesty because they’re not being honest themselves), but some people who didn’t like you before might decide they do.

I can promise you that it gets easier over time. You can start small! Really, really small. Use self-deprecating humor if it helps. It’s all just practice and experimentation. No one’s saying you have to reveal all the stuff. I have many things I don’t talk about and probably never will. I only share stuff that measure up to about a 5 or maybe a 6 on the discomfort Richter scale. I started at 1.

And if you need a final piece of wisdom to ease your mind about sharing your true self with the public, there’s this: often the worst thing that happens is you find out nobody actually cares that much anyway!

You Can Learn to Fiercely Protect Your Creative Practice

Even us timid people can be bold when it comes to defending our creative space.

A friend recently commented on how fiercely I protect my creative practice. The amusing image that popped into my head of myself armor-clad with sword drawn is at odds with how I see myself usually. I lack self-confidence, and I’ll avoid conflict at almost any cost. And yet she’s right. I defend my creative practice against anything that threatens to encroach on it. Somehow I’m bold and audacious within that space.

Part of my defense involves prioritizing my creative work over other things, but much of it is the mental and emotional labor that defending the inherent value of my creative work requires. When the main work of your life is something that doesn’t earn any money and doesn’t involve caring for others (e.g. being a wife/mother), you inevitably find yourself in a position of having to protect and defend against judgement (much of which is self-judgement due to conditioned cultural beliefs), incomprehension, or just plain indifference.

How is it that someone like me, so unassuming and even timid in general, is able to so fiercely advocate for her own creative practice? Moreover, how am I able to continue to do my creative work in the face of the often inhospitable world? I’m not a warrior, I don’t believe my creative work is all that important in the grander scheme of things. I’m not out to change the world with it. I just want to be happy, and my creative practice is how I ensure that on the day to day. Creative practice is my antidepressant, you could say. That alone is reason enough to protect it, but that’s not what enables me to do so. Likewise, I believe in the inherent value of my practice, but that’s not enough to engender my fierce protective instincts.   

What enables me is the space I’ve created around my creative practice, like a buffer zone between my work and the rough edges of the world. While I created that space out of necessity, I’ve come to find that I’m a different person there. Whatever boldness and audacity doing creative work requires in the first place becomes what I use to defend my creative practice against anything that threatens it. This could be something as small as an overbooked schedule. It could be something as big as a relationship that is using up the emotional energy I need to put into my creative work. In the creative entrepreneurship spaces I have recently found myself in, it often looks like explaining that for me creativity is a way of life, a way of being in the world. It’s not part of something else, not part of a business, for example (although business could be a part of creativity…perhaps). Creative practice is the thing around which all other things revolve. It is my center.

I think a creative practice requires this kind of fierce protection. Creativity and the time and space to do creative work are so easily encroached upon. Even robust practice can erode like sand from the repeated insistence of the gentlest waves. It can happen without us noticing. Life takes over, things come up, creativity can wait. If you don’t insist on that time and space and on the importance of your creative work (at least to you, if to no one else), it will inevitably languish.

You’ll feel strident, like you’re repeating yourself endlessly (I have to do my work. No, really, I have to do my work). You’ll feel selfish (I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I have to do my work). You’ll feel weird (I know everyone is doing [the thing everyone is supposed to want to do], but I need to do my work). All this is what following your passion and purpose feels like, I think. This is what it requires from you.

I didn’t develop my fierceness overnight. It grew as my practice did, in pace with it, organically over years. So don’t worry if you don’t feel fierce about your practice. I advise clients to find one way they can prioritize their creative work, big or small. Take one vacation day a month to do your work. Cancel one activity – better one that drains you than brings you joy, but either will do – and do your work. Once you begin to experience yourself prioritizing your creative work, you’ll grow in confidence that you can find your boldness, and that your work is important enough to protect and defend. You’ll begin to want to don your armor and draw your sword in defense of it. If I can do it, you can do it.

Are You Afraid to Put Your Work Out There? This Will Help

Eight guidelines to help you get brave about putting your work out into the world.

Time and again the number one thing my coaching clients say holds them back from fulfilling their creative dreams is fear of putting their work out there in front of other people’s eyes. Fear of negative judgement, or worse, being totally ignored (this is a far more common outcome) can become a real creative block, and keep people from even starting a creative project. It can hold others back from finishing, because the thought of putting their work out into the world for consumption steals the joy from their private creative practice. The chasm between the subjective experience of creative practice and the objectification of your creative work in the public sphere can feel vast and terrifying.

I understand this fear because it held me back for many years. I experienced a lot of rejection in the early part of my writing career and it eventually wore me down until I was unable to write at all. When I started up again, I knew I would need to develop some better mental skills to help me deal with this fear of being seen and judged. I still struggle with putting my work out into the world, but I’ve come up with some guidelines that have helped me, that I share with clients and now am sharing with you.

1. In the beginning, it’s just hard. There’s really no getting around the fear and anxiety of taking those first steps of putting your work out there. But I promise, it gets easier, and the rest of the tips are meant to help with that.

2. Volume. When I started my blog, each post felt so precious because I felt like I had to make each perfect. This made me feel extra vulnerable. But after I had a bunch up, I stopped worrying so much that each one was excellent. If you are working on larger projects, like a book, consider joining a critique group where you can get feedback on small bits.

3. Consistency. What doing your creative work regularly helps with is realizing that not all your stuff has to be brilliant. I write a weekly blog post. Some weeks I’m on fire, others definitely not. I post regardless (mostly). Some of my blog posts are just “eh.” That’s okay. Same goes for my fiction.

4. Nothing is personal. The way people receive your work and what they think about it is 100% about them, and you have 0% control over it. Repeat this to yourself as much as necessary.

5. Be specific about the feedback you want! Asking for and receiving feedback deserves its own separate post, but in the beginning when you are putting your work out and need some encouragement and practice with hearing people’s responses to it, tell your friends exactly that! Ask them to tell you one thing about your work that they liked, that inspired them, that stood out, that made them think. Tell them you do not want any critiques or advice! Just positive, loving, encouraging words. And choose which friends you ask carefully. You know which friends are great at positive support, and which aren’t. Then, believe what they tell you.

6. Make sure you enjoy doing your creative work. If you enjoy your process and feel good about your work, that will go a long way toward insulating you against difficult feedback.

7. Take all feedback with a grain of salt. Again, people’s opinions on your work are 100% about them. Pick and choose what you listen to depending on context, the type of creative work you are doing, and ultimate goals. Be your own advocate, believe in yourself and your own judgement, and stand strong in your own truth.

It’s always hard to put yourself out there. But you can get better at it with practice. Don’t feel bad if you struggle with it! Us creatives are all in the same boat with this, and believe me when I say that we all feel similar fears, insecurities, and self-judgment. So here’s my final guideline:

8. Reach out to other creatives! Find people who aren’t afraid to talk about their struggles and difficult feelings, and share their journey with you. Knowing you’re not alone is one of the best ways find strength on your own journey. And you’re not alone, I promise.

On Belonging

If you want to feel you belong with others, first you must feel you belong to yourself.

I’ve recently joined Andy Mort as one of the facilitators of The Haven, his gentle community for deep thinkers and sensitive creatives, where I run a forum called “From Burnout to Book.” Writers of all kinds and at all stages of their own writing journey can find kind and compassionate encouragement there, and I invite you to join us. If you sign up to the Haven using my special link, you will get a free 45-minute consultation with me about your writing, so I can learn how to better support you in the forum. The Haven is a wonderful community and a true home for us gentle souls, and we’d love to have you there!

The Haven is built around a year-long contemplation of themes that change with the seasons, and in October we are reflecting on belonging (we just recorded a podcast episode about it that will be coming out soon, available here). Let me ask you a question: Do you feel like you belong, truly belong, anywhere?

I’m one of those people who’s never felt they belong. I have always had this deep-seated feeling that I don’t belong here, in the world. It mostly manifests as a sense that other people all know what they’re doing, they belong in their own lives, but I somehow don’t. It’s like an existential version of imposter syndrome. I can’t say where it comes from, though I have my suspicions it has its roots in being a shy, highly sensitive kid who often experienced rejection and was deeply hurt by it. Its origins don’t really matter to me, though – what interests me is how belonging, and not belonging, have resonated through my life, and how I see these things now, as an adult looking backward and forward from the middle stage of my life.

Being a misfit is a part of my sense of self (I’m an Enneagram 4, after all!). It’s something I value, but also something that has always been painful. I left the US at age 16 to go live abroad, because I did not feel I belonged in my home culture. I spent the majority of the next decade living in other countries, because not fitting into a culture where I was a foreigner was easier than not fitting into my own (and I genuinely love learning about other cultures and studying languages).

What I realized after a while, though, was that living overseas was in part an attempt to escape myself. For a time in a new place I was able to pretend I was a different person, exploring different ways of being in a new culture, but my self always caught up with me eventually. Usually around the one-year mark, if you want to get specific. Wherever I went, there I was.

It’s telling that I didn’t start to feel like I belonged somewhere until I started to feel like I belonged in myself. The sense of being rooted in myself, living the life I’m meant to live (whatever that means), is what brought me home, finally. I don’t mean physically: I’ve been back in my home culture for many years now. I’m referring to the feeling of having found my thing, and my people. And what brought me to this place, my home, as I see it, is accepting who and what I am. I’m a writer, a creative, a person who must live and be in that realm of creative energy and inspiration for the main of my time. Even if it means my life isn’t successful in a conventional sense. Even if it means I never make much money.

What does it feel like to belong? It feels safe, and unbounded by conditions. It feels like not having to change myself, or perform thoughts, feelings, or actions. You know you belong when you enter a space that was already holding you before you walked through the door. That’s how I feel in the Haven, and it’s how I feel in my own life. I have made space for myself, I am holding myself compassionately and with deep and unconditional support.    

So often we go about things in an inside-out way. If I belong with others, I’ll feel like I belong (to/in myself). If this equation isn’t working for you, try flipping it. If I feel like I belong (to/in myself), I’ll belong with others. I found my people when I became my own people. Focus on yourself, know who you are, do what pleases you. You may find that this is what turns the world toward you, and brings you to a place of greater belonging that has always already been holding space for you.

Is Being a Gentle Soul Actually a Benefit in Tumultuous Times?

Gentle souls have personality traits that are counterintuitively adaptive in times of crisis.

During tumultuous times like those we’re all experiencing right now, it would be easy to assume that gentle souls are at a disadvantage. When you are an introverted, sensitive type living in a society that values extraversion and bold aggressiveness, you grow up feeling maladapted to your environment in general, unsuited to thriving “out there” in the world. And you’re not imagining things. Us gentle souls end up taking a back seat or outright fading into the woodwork not just because that’s where we feel most comfortable, but because those are the positions we’re forced into in a society that doesn’t value our skillset.

And now the world is changing, and fast. Many people are being forced to pivot, redefine their lives, reimagine their futures – and reestablish their emotional and psychological equilibrium on what feels like constantly shifting ground. It would be easy to think that people with those go-getter, outwardly positive personality traits like extraversion and competitive spirit would be better at these things. But I’ve observed something rather astonishing over the course of the last year of the pandemic and related economic and political upheaval. Among people I know, those who possess gentle soul traits have seemed to fare better or have actually thrived, contrary to all expectation. Could it be that gentle souls have personality traits that are adaptive in difficult times? 

An obvious one is introversion. Those who are both adept at being alone and require alone time on a regular basis have almost certainly weathered the enforced quarantines and isolation of the pandemic better than extraverts. I know a number of introverts who feel their quality of life has increased substantially with work-from-home (those fortunate enough to be able to do this with their jobs). Their productivity has increased along with their peace of mind. But what about those other traits of gentle souls: the sensitivity, aversion to aggressive competitiveness, and well, gentleness? Even if you are a gentle soul who hasn’t felt these characteristics have benefited you during these times, keep reading – this might give you a new perspective as to how they can going forward.

Gentle souls’ highly sensitive nature can make them prone to mental health issues. I personally have a major anxiety disorder, and if my anxiety gets too severe, bam! Depression hits. You’d think that extraordinary stressors, like those that arise in extraordinary times, would make me worse. But in fact, the opposite is true. I’ve noticed throughout my life that I actually feel less anxiety when life is out of the ordinary, like when I’m traveling overseas. Ordinary life stuff, like going to the grocery store, stresses me to the max, but nothing calms me down like going to another country where I know no one and don’t speak the language. Weird, right?

Here’s what I think: as an HSP (highly sensitive person), I’m extremely sensitive to small stressors, and in ordinary situations, these stand out a lot, like tacks on an otherwise smooth track. But in novel situations where everything is a small stressor, in order to psychologically survive I have to rise above all of it. It’s almost like I enter a Zen calm, in which I can respond to my environment in a state of composed, alert presence. Seriously, I’m someone you want around in a crisis – just don’t ask me to get you groceries haha. A possible theory as to why this happens is this: because I have to manage so many stressors in normal daily life because of my high sensitivity, when a crisis occurs I can marshal that skillset and wield it very effectively.

Another trait that can make gentle souls seem less adaptive is our tendency to dislike competitive, conflictual interactions. Much of our understanding of human nature has its origins in evolutionary biology, in which the dominant theory is survival of the fittest, and our systems are set up to capitalize on this. It’s obvious that gentle souls are not adapted to this type of game. We simply aren’t, there’s really no question about it. But what if evolutionary biology was wrong about that whole survival of the fittest thing? More recent studies have shown that nature is in fact overwhelmingly cooperative. Competition is actually highly destructive, and this has been borne out in studies of the human realm as well (for example, see Kohn’s The Case Against Competition). What many people are really communicating when they say they like competition is that they like winning. Being an aggressive competitor may help you win, but it’s not an adaptive trait. It’s not going to help you win friends and influence people, in other words.

Gentle souls may not be adaptive in highly competitive environments, but the skills we possess, like cooperative spirit, a desire for kindness, and a capacity for empathy, make us very adaptive in general. And during tumultuous times, these are exactly the skills that are needed. So let’s not be shy about them. Being sensitive, kind, and gentle are awesome things to be right now, and we should be proclaiming that! At the very least, we should be valuing these traits in ourselves at a personal level. And we shouldn’t be afraid to say out loud things like, “I don’t find value in competition,” or “I’m glad I’m an introvert,” or “I think aggressive people bring everyone down,” or “Maybe the problem isn’t that I’m too sensitive, but that you’re not sensitive enough.” Or anything else that flies in the face of the hegemonic conventional thinking about these things. The way we can bring value to the world by valuing ourselves, so let’s do it.

Gentle Souls Are Badass

Our society may not appreciate gentle souls, but they are indisputably awesome.

Those of us who are gentle souls – introverted, highly sensitive types – understand early on that we have an undesirable personality in the eyes of society. Most of us grew up hearing that we needed to be “more”: more social, more active, more participatory, more talkative. Trying to survive in a culture that celebrates extroversion, aggressiveness, and emotional toughness is painful for gentle souls. And that pisses me off. You can find lists of our positive traits everywhere online these days, e.g. we’re good listeners, but it always feels like they’re a kind of disclaimer: Quiet loner, but good for something nonetheless, maybe. Enough of feeling like societal undesirables. So I did some brainstorming about what is indisputably awesome about being a gentle soul. What kind of badassery do we bring to the table because of, not despite, who we are? 

Two stand-out traits of gentle souls are their sensitivity and their capacity for deep thinking. Deep thinking is also known as conceptual thinking: understanding things through identifying underlying patterns and making connections among disparate ideas. I’m going to show you how these two traits make gentle souls totally badass.

Gentle souls are genius at problem solving

Sensitivity is a detail-oriented trait because it means you’re reactive to more stimuli in your environment and are therefore more aware of what’s going on around you. This feeds right into deep thinking: gentle souls put details into patterns so they can better protect themselves from painful stimuli. Problem solving is their natural mode of existence because regular human activity can require a lot of prep work in order to do it. It’s not unusual for a highly sensitive introvert to plan out a shopping trip with all possible contingencies, including parking availability, possible amount of people, and where items are located in the store, before they even leave their house.

Think this sounds like a disadvantage or a handicap? Nope. It’s actually an incredible skill. Gentle souls have a well-developed capacity for visualization, not only of problems themselves, but of different solutions and the possible outcomes of these solutions. The inside of their brains is like a complex interactive flow chart. They can see problems arising before other people are even aware of them and are masters of predicting contingencies and coming up with work-arounds. Creative problem solving is just how gentle souls live their everyday lives.    

Gentle souls are society’s knowledge creators

A knowledge creator is someone who sees things other people don’t and then uses that insight to create new understandings. This is the next step up from problem solving, and involves systemizing knowledge into usable packages. If you are a gentle soul who’s struggling to figure out how to serve the world, this is a path to consider. You already have all the necessary skills: you’re detail-oriented and conceptual, a problem solver and visualizer. Introverted, sensitive people are intuitive, a skill that comes from their responsiveness to their environment – it’s what gives them the ability not only to see things other people don’t, but to see things differently, from diverse angles and points of view (what I call thinking outside of the outside of the box).

Knowledge creation can look like a lot of things. It could be helping other people understand themselves better and reach their potential: counseling, coaching, teaching. Or creating new systems: design, administration, software development. Artists are knowledge creators – they take in information from their environment, process it internally, and use it to create something that brings pleasure, enlightenment, and learning to others. Not surprisingly, these career paths are filled with gentle souls. But virtually any activity can be approached from a knowledge creation standpoint. Being able to see your role vis-à-vis society as knowledge creator can help you develop an identity based on internal confidence in who you are (because you are a badass!) rather than the job you do, which is something society assigns and is based on external valuation of your worth.

These are not by a long shot the only indisputably awesome things about gentle souls. So if you are a gentle soul, take heart. Being a gentle soul truly makes you amazing. If you aren’t a gentle soul, but know some, try telling them you think they’re badass because they’re highly sensitive and often quiet in group settings. See how they respond. I’m curious to know.

I Want to Join the Fight for Social Justice, But I’m an Extreme Introvert with Mental Health Issues!

How can I contribute in a meaningful way?

A curse of introverts, especially those of us who are intuitive feelers (INFPs and INFJs), is that while we tend to care deeply about social and political issues, we are also behind-the-scene types, if not actively avoidant of large group activities. We want to do our part, but being on the front lines – for example in emotive protests – quickly and painfully overwhelms us. And mental health issues can make participation all but impossible. The attention garnered by active forms of dissent can make those of us inclined toward background roles and a quieter approach wonder if we are doing enough. It can even make us wonder if we are contributing anything significant at all.

This is on my mind a lot recently, because I want to see significant and enduring social justice occur for oppressed peoples. I’m a white, cishet woman who comes from a privileged background, so it’s incumbent upon me to educate myself and do the work to make change. As an intuitive feeler and an HSP, my emotional response to the injustices I see occurring is deeply painful. And yet I struggle to actively participate in frontline activities in any sustained way because of my introversion and severe anxiety issues. I also have to limit my consumption of news and social media. The result of this is a lot of guilt.

I want to be clear that my personal feelings of guilt and inadequacy are not important in the context of working for social justice. When I show up, I push all this aside because it’s not about me, plain and simple. But in my own time this is something I grapple with, and I know I’m not the only one. This post is for people who are similarly struggling. Here are some of my thoughts on how to work through complex and difficult feelings about social justice work when you feel unable to participate in meaningful ways.

We need to stop saying silence is complicity  

Silence in the face of injustice can be complicity. We should not stay silent in our private spheres, and people and organizations with a public presence have a responsibility to take a stand. But silence has its place, particularly now, and particularly on the part of people who have privilege of any kind. The first and most important thing we can do is to shut up and listen. Without responding. Our opinions are not needed. We should be listening to the recounting of the lived experiences of those who need justice, and we should especially be listening to what they say about what they need and how we can help.

Guess what introverts are really, really good at? Listening. And thinking deeply about what we have heard. Why does this matter? Because just listening is not enough. We need to practice active listening. This means continuously working to examine our own biases and doing our own research to supplement what we’ve heard. It especially means sitting with discomfort, because discomfort is the growing pains of the soul. If you can do this, you are already ahead of most people, including many of those who jump at the opportunity to go out on the front lines. Demonstrating and protesting, while it certainly can be a catalyst of change, cannot equal sustained and deep work in the realm of discomfort on the part of every individual. That which we seek to change in society is rooted within ourselves, and the biggest and most important work you can do is in your own heart and mind.

You are allowed to be slow in your response

Introverts require more time than extroverts to formulate responses. We also generally prefer quality over quantity – we’d rather think carefully about our response to make sure it’s relevant and targeted than blurt out just anything. This is why participation grades in school are a nightmare for us. Our approach to taking action is similar.

This can feel really bad when the need for justice is urgent – which it always is, right? But it’s important to remember that change inevitably takes time (unfortunately), and that it really is sustained action that makes the difference. Very rarely do overnight revolutions occur. Most of the time, social change happens when a critical mass of people push for it, and political change happens when social pressure results in the political will to legislate. Demonstrations and protests certainly matter, because they are a very public way of showing how much support an issue has. However, most of the work for change occurs behind the scenes and in support roles. 

Guess what introverts love? Working behind the scenes and in support roles. Especially for those of us with privilege, our place should be in support roles. Taking the lead, unless it is asked of us, is called co-opting the issue, and it’s wrongheaded. As an introvert, you probably won’t have a problem with taking a back seat!

Be skeptical of performative activism

A performative action is one that is done for the sake of appearing a certain way to others. When you are doing something performative for personal reasons – because it’s an easy way to show up or so other people will think well of you – this isn’t true activism. It’s like window shopping. That said, doing something for the visibility of it has its place: this is what demonstrations and protests are. But it’s important to not mistake this type of highly emotive and visible activism for revolutionary action. The unfortunate truth is that often people’s work for change stops when the demonstration does. Again, it’s not that this kind of activism isn’t important – but it’s not the only important way to contribute, nor is it the most important way. 

I’m not going to list ways to contribute from behind the scenes, because you can easily google that. I will say that I find that using my money to help fund activist organizations, bail funds, or to support minority-owned businesses is often my chosen type of contribution. And I keep listening, learning, and examining my own biases. Paying attention is itself a kind of activism, particularly when it means you are sitting in discomfort quite a lot. Remind yourself that your discomfort is small compared to those who bear the brunt of injustices. Also remind yourself that you are allowed to take a break from it if you need to (while remembering that the people who need justice often do not have this privilege).

Being an extreme introvert and having mental health issues does not have to mean you can’t do meaningful work on behalf of social justice. If you’re like me, you probably already knew this, but have lacked confidence about your ability to contribute. I remind myself every day that change starts with the personal work I do on myself. If today that’s the only thing I do, it’s still valuable, and tomorrow maybe I can do more.  

Why the Standard Advice for Empaths Sucks

Empaths need to do more than just survive; we need to thrive.

Empaths are people who are sensitive to the emotions and thoughts of others to the point of absorbing and feeling them as if they are our own. We need lots of time to ourselves in order to process, and are often called too sensitive, withdrawn, or shy because our culture privileges extroverted personalities. In the last decade the character traits of empaths and other types of introverts have come to be more understood and less denigrated. There are now many resources out there to help empaths learn how to thrive. But most of the advice falls flat because it still defines us based on extroverted values. Its ultimate aim is to tell us how to adjust ourselves to fit into the dominant culture rather than helping us discover how to further develop our inherent personality traits.

That’s because standard advice for empaths isn’t really about helping us thrive. It’s about how to survive being one. How to protect ourselves. How to feel less. How to create barriers between ourselves and others in order to block ourselves off from negative emotions. This is based on the understanding that empaths need a lot of space around themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This isn’t wrong, but the assumption that we need this space in order to recover from social interactions is a shadow truth – only true when you define empaths from an extroverted perspective. Imagine yourself living in a society of only empaths. In such a culture, introversion would be normal, simply human nature. In such a culture, it would be understood that empaths need space around themselves because it is in that space that we become fully ourselves.  

The skills empaths possess are a gift, and if we spend all our energy learning how to subvert and block our true nature in order to “survive” in a hegemonic extroverted culture, we have nothing left over with which to develop our gift. We are not surviving at all, in fact. We are living at best a half life, living in a realm of shadow truth. And here’s the thing: blocking doesn’t work. At least, I’ve never been successful at getting better at it. I still feel all the things, and on top of that I feel inadequate for not being stronger.

But there is an even scarier side to this. Many empaths, instead of learning how to strengthen boundaries between themselves and others, end up instead creating one between themselves and their own emotions. The emotions are still all there, overwhelming us, but by refusing to let ourselves feel the emotions, we alienate them, turning them into something dark. Anxiety and depression are often the result.  

What ends up happening is that empaths accommodate themselves to the hegemonic extroverted culture through an endless cycle of painful engagement and exhausted withdrawal. There has to be a better way. And here’s what I think it is: to stop defining ourselves using extroverted values. Try the thought experiment I mention above – what would life look like, who would you be, in a culture that is made entirely of empaths? We can start there, in a place where our personalities traits are normal, even celebrated.

When I imagine a society of empaths, I see a culture based on kindness, gentleness, and a soft approach to personal growth. No tough love allowed! Think the Great British Baking Show rather than basically every American competitive cooking program. Or maybe let’s just go straight to an episode of the Barefoot Contessa. I want to live in a world where people are nice to each other and see the best in each other. Let’s face it: that’s not what we have. The world we live in right now is pretty damn toxic.

We can’t change the way things are or other people, but we can begin to create the world we want to live in for ourselves in our personal lives. This can look a lot of different ways. For me it has meant deciding to no longer participate in toxic traditional work environments (I freelance now) and ruthlessly excising harmful people from my life (including some close friends and family members). It has also meant sitting with some very uncomfortable emotions. Rejecting a traditional career means that I don’t make much money, and that feels embarrassing. I struggle with regret and anger over past relationships that I stayed in too long. But I want something better. I want to be fully myself, and to see where that takes me. And that will never happen if I spend my life trying to accommodate myself to our extroverted culture by blocking myself off from my empathic nature.

Being an empath shouldn’t be defined as “too sensitive.” Maybe it’s time to define non-empaths as being not sensitive enough! We are empaths for a reason; we do have a higher purpose. We gentle souls are what the world needs right now, even if our individual impact seems confined to our personal spheres. You are more important than you think! And your daily work to become more fully yourself is important work.

Introverts, Be Proud

This is the era of introverts!

I’ve noticed something interesting in the midst of the social distancing required by the coronavirus pandemic. My introverted friends are suddenly much more active on Facebook, posting about resources, spreading positive messages, and proffering solidarity. My more extroverted friends, the ones who usually clutter up my feed, are…fascinatingly silent. It’s almost as if introverts, with our more attuned sensitivities and ability to enjoy periods of isolation, are uniquely suited to this unprecedented situation (hint: we are).

I’ve been pondering something that’s often occurred to me over the last few years. In a world in which we are already socially isolated for so many reasons, and with the growth of home-based personal internet businesses in the last decade, are introverts finally having their day? 

When I was growing up, being shy and introverted was not considered cool. I felt like a pariah among my peers. My friends were the other geeks and nerds. Most of us got bullied eventually, some of us horrifically. I can’t tell you how much I prayed that my shyness would be taken away (I didn’t know the difference between shyness and introversion back then). My profound socially awkwardness meant that I was under constant stress. Group activities of any kind at school were a nightmare. I was often very, very unhappy. Weekends were spent shut up in my room, reading and working on crafts. And during those long stretches of time alone, I felt happy. Very, very happy.

My life is little changed by social distancing during this pandemic. I already work from home, I take daily walks with my dog but otherwise don’t go out much, and most of my friends are text message buddies. Even my writing group meets online! All those personality traits other kids made fun of are now a benefit.

Then, today this popped up on Facebook: “Introverts, check in on your extroverted friends; they’re probably really suffering right now!” And you know what? I didn’t really believe it - because come on, being home all the time isn’t that hard, is it? I did an experiment: I posted about how I feel that I’ve been training my whole life to survive this enforced social distancing. An extroverted acquaintance replied, “I’m the opposite. It’s going to kill me.”

It’s not going to kill him (and hopefully the virus won’t, either), but wow. I can’t imagine finding social distancing that hard! But here’s the thing - extroverts can’t imagine how hard introverts find daily life in a society that favors extroverted personalities. We have to work harder for everything. Now it’s the extroverts who are going to have to work harder to adapt. I told him I know he’ll make it through - but he may have to find some creative solutions to his cabin fever. And he may find he’s more exhausted than usual, not at the top of his game - the way introverts often feel when we have to go out into the world and extrovert.

In the meantime, I’m doing pretty well, at least with the social distancing part. In fact, despite all the fear and uncertainty, I feel strangely confident, given the circumstances. And I was thinking: us introverts should start being proud of who we are. We are like the new cool kids in town - we have skills and resources that will help us endure and thrive in this new reality. I think it’s time we start saying – Out loud! To other people! – that we are glad we are introverts, that it does not make us the “second-bests” of society. We are not less useful than extroverts - in fact, quite possibly the opposite is true. We have a chance to shine in this new era – during this pandemic and beyond.