The other day I wrote one for the introverts, and if you don’t really like ‘being sociable’ then the Reader Ego Construct 📦 was quite possibly rubbing its hands together with glee, thinking, “Ooh, I’m off the hook here – Giles said I don’t have to force myself to be sociable!”
Yes, this is what minds do. They seek the path of least resistance, laying down ever-stronger habitual pathways of thinking into your neurology, making your life smaller and smaller.
🙄
So today, almost as counterpoint, I’m going to explore the fine line between
- genuinely not being in a fit state to socialise, at one point in time (as I outlined in the previous post) vs.
- being a bit up in your head about socialising generally, attaching to those stories, and watching your life shrink as a consequence.
Because it’s very easy to get sucked into using introversion as an excuse. And when lives shrink, there’s a tendency for us to live less, and think more. Which is rubbish.
😞
So let me relate to you what happened when I joined a social group for the very first time.
Andy’s legacy
Depending on where you are in the world, and how in tune with men’s mental health you are, you may (or may not) have heard of Andy’s Man Club. It’s a charity that was founded ten years ago in the UK, following the death by suicide of the eponymous Andrew Roberts.
Nobody really had any idea how much Andy was suffering, so after the tragedy his family decided to create a space for men to talk about their experiences and get things off their mind, in a non-judgmental group setting. (Something that men are classically not very good at.)
Tapping into this tendency, their strapline is: #ItsOkayToTalk and from their humble beginnings (9 men in a room in the West Yorkshire town of Halifax, in the summer of 2016) they now have 320 venues in the UK where, every Monday, men get together over a cuppa and a biscuit to talk.
You don’t need to be suicidal or even struggling with your mental health to show up – all men over 18 can attend. Each session is facilitated by volunteers and has a simple, easy structure to it. It's a friendly, welcoming experience, if you want to go along.
There’s a group in the town where I live, and I’m soon going to be doing some work with local dads, so I thought it would be a good idea to go along and check out how the sessions are run; see what’s on offer in the area.
And good lord, did the Giles Ego Construct 📦 have a lot to say about that!
‘Personality’ peril
You may have gathered, from the fact that I come to you from behind my desk via the written word; that I wax lyrical about making mixtapes long into the night; and that I am never happier than when smashing out day-long solo bike rides… that I value solitude incredibly highly and do not generally feel sustained by group activities.
Ask my very sociable wife, and she’d say I go out of my way to avoid them, and she’s not wrong – I’m genuinely happier engaged in one of the creative pursuits listed above. I might talk a lot when you see me, but if I could be arsed doing any sort of personality labelling exercise test, I reckon I’d probably qualify as an introvert.
Ok, ok, just for you, I stepped away and performed a quick Myers-Briggs test, which, as I suspected, was full of questions I would answer one way or the other way, depending on what frame of mind I was in… and that involved giving answers that often directly contradicted each other, because both seemed applicable 🤷🏻♂️
But today, here and now, in my current state of mind, if this sort of thing is important to you, I came back as an ISFP (‘The Adventurer’) with allegedly suitable careers such as Writer, Social Worker, Counsellor and Musician, which all sounds right up my street, doesn't it?
All that said, I shall promptly forget all of that because I’d score differently tomorrow, and even 10 minutes from now – it’s all made up!!
And it’s so easy to hide behind these little labels, while failing to notice that we exhibit all sorts of tendencies, in different situations, and at different levels of consciousness, or mood. Personality is not a (fixed) thing!
My most obvious manifestation of this was always the school run, when my daughter was younger. On some days I’d pitch up at the last minute, peaked cap on, silent, head down and avoiding making eye contact with anyone except my Chica… whereas other days, I’d be whistling all the way there and couldn’t wait to engage other parents and random people in conversation!
(Look for the inconsistencies, people!)
A room full of strangers
All of which goes towards setting the scene on me heading down into town to attend Andy's Man Club for the first time, and
- to get permission from the organisers to attend, given the reason I was there
- to sit in a room full of total strangers and talk about personal stuff
- to suffer the confusion that arises (still!) when asked ‘What do you do, then?’
- to really not have the slightest idea about what was going to happen
- to feel more out of my comfort zone than I have felt in literally years.
And knowing that all of that 👆🏻 was not ‘how I was’ (and therefore using introversion as an excuse to opt out), or even ‘how these things are’ but rather that it was all just passing insecure thought that, in and of itself, could do no harm.
But, in thrall to all this insecure thinking, introducing myself to the lovely, welcoming organisers felt awkward and clunky. I sat in silence like a rabbit in the headlights, while others greeted each other. When it was my turn to speak—easy stuff, nothing that I didn't want to share—I did so quietly, looking mostly at the floor, rather than anyone else.
It was fascinating to observe just how powerful thought can be!
What dawned
And then, a couple of things happened. The first was that I began to listen to what the other men in the room were saying, when it was their turn to speak. As in, properly listening, with nothing on my mind.
That meant:
- Not comparing what they were saying with what I thought
- Not judging what was being said as good, bad or any other adjective the mind might come up with
- Not imagining how I would reply, if asked, or how I would tackle such a situation
- Not thinking ahead to what I would say next time it was my turn to speak
- Not being distracted by the mind's commentary on what was being said
- Not thinking about something completely unrelated to the entire evening.
All of which is a lot easier—and relaxing!—than you might imagine. Letting the words wash over me, I got more of a sense of the person speaking; of where they were coming from. (That's kind of how it works!)
And that naturally led to the second thing: relaxing into the reality of the situation: a group of my fellow humans, all faced with their own thought-created realities (some aspects of which, to each perceiver, seemed problematic… some funny… some inspiring).
As my conditioned nervous system began to feel safe and I became less and less ‘self’-conscious (you could say, as my aperture opened), I became more conscious instead of the shared experience we were having.
And that question I posed the other day (the one that asks whether we have ‘better-relationships-lead-to-happiness’, back to front?) began to manifest in real time:
The result
I've said, many a time before, that all behaviour lies downstream of our present-moment relationship to thought.
Which means that as the mind's insecurities faded into the background:
- the accompanying jangly feelings I was experiencing started to settle
- I felt a genuine kinship with this room full of total strangers (the fabled oneness, on which all else is built)
- I became genuinely, and naturally curious about others
- I easily started up conversations in the tea break (unheard of when attached to that ‘introvert’ identity)!
- I got into all sorts of conversations, including an in-depth chat on the walk home with someone who happened to live just round the corner from me
- I left with a great feeling, determined to make it a regular fixture in my calendar.
All stemming from a fork in the road where I very nearly didn't go along, because I almost fell for the mind's oh-so-seductive insecurities.
🤷🏻♂️
Final word
Coming back to the Harvard study on the importance of meaningful relationships in our lives, I tend to agree with their conclusions: this stuff's powerful, and it's positive.
But hopefully this little episode has got you curious about the underlying mechanism. Maybe it's not so much the relationship itself that's contributing to our health and wellbeing, it's the way that we're showing up, and what's on offer when we approach time with others from a place of presence and openness.
All good to know, when your inner introvert (📦) is faced with an opportunity to socialise!
💟
Giles
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Related
Giles P Croft
A powerful piece of writing (with audio narration) that looks at how to turn feelings of ‘otherness’ to our advantage.