In our culture, time is chopped up into portions. Time starts and stops, and all along the time bomb ticks. We feel immense guilt if we don't produce in the allotted time chunk. Work starts when the clock says it's time, and it is imperative that you start, too. In our society, time is rigid, stingy, and running out.
It is useful to make agreements about time, and I'll be the first to admit that having a "deadline" helps—but then again, it's the only system I know. But do we really need to be threatened? Have we lost all trust in the creative process?
FROM DEADLINE TO BIRTH TIME
What if we called the target date the "birth time" instead? Birthing happens when the project—the baby—is ready. Most of the work happens inside, naturally. The pressure builds until that little life has to come out. But, as opposed to a deadline, the pressure is internal. A terrified woman in the throes of labor may want to call the whole thing off, but the creative process takes over, and she is soon looking into the eyes of a completely new human being.
Introverts have direct access to this internal power—the power to birth fully formed ideas, insights, and solutions. People ask me how I'm able to come up with enough material to fill a book. I tell them, "I've been writing this all of my life." An introvert who sits back in a meeting, taking in the arguments, dreamily reflecting on the big picture, may be seen as not contributing—that is, until he works out the solution that all the contributors missed.
The birthing model not only allows time to think, but it allows time to stay alive. We can't really kill time, and we can't really chop time up. We just don't have that much control. Time is time. It will be there whether we run ourselves ragged or sit on the dock of the bay. And, for introverts especially, this is very good news.
For almost twenty years, I have devoted my psychology practice to "rehabilitating desire": helping clients revive desires that have been assaulted by external demands, and restoring their trust in their own desire-based motivation. Though we often think of desire in sexual terms—and sexual desire is a good example of this motivating energy—I use the term in its broader and richer sense. Desire is the seed of intrinsic motivation, the natural impulse to create, to expand, to grow.
People often argue that desire is inherently bad or burdensome, fostering either harmful behavior or greedy consumption. Harmful outcomes do sometimes occur, but they happen when desire is not given the proper attention—and time. A person bent on getting drunk probably does not want to consume toxins and eventually become sick and depressed; she desires a change in her state of mind. She didn't overindulge at all; she underindulged. She did not give her desire enough time, thought, or attention. In fact, addictive behaviors usually have more to do with a need to extinguish desire. The thinking is: "If I binge, I won't ever be hungry again," or "If I build a huge house with everything I need, I will never have to move." Why in the world would we want to eliminate our experience of hunger or stop exploring new horizons? Because time is running out, of course. We need to figure out how to make babies quicker!
The paradox is, when we use the desire model instead of the death model, everything is easier. Desire, when it is properly nourished, works like pregnancy and birth: once it gets going, there's no stopping it. But birthing requires the capacity to hold, to tolerate the growing pressure of what's inside and to patiently wait until it's ready. This holding capacity is the hallmark of introversion. And it's extremely powerful. Here's how it works:
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
—Gandhi
• Step 1: Capture your wishful thinking. Pay attention to the times you say to yourself, "I wish I could ________," or "Wouldn't it be nice if __________." Sometimes the wish will be for something extravagant; other times you will feel the desire to solve a problem or master something you're working on. You may just want a break. Whatever it is, take note of it. Feelings of desire come up multiple times a day, but we often cover them over before we recognize them. You may want to keep a Desire Notebook. Putting your wishes in writing makes them visible and tangible, and helps you notice emerging themes. Warning: Be prepared for thoughts that interrupt your desiring. They may tell you that what you want is too much to expect, or mockingly ask you, "Who do you think you are?" Don't let these thoughts trap you. Just return your attention to the desire.
• Step 2: Look into the desire. When you catch a desire, stay with it. If the desire seems harmful, ask yourself what you're really going for. Cheating on your partner will hurt people (which undermines the desire), but the desire to cheat is telling you something. If you want passion, why should you settle for a part-time solution that leaves you feeling guilty? Think bigger. Sometimes we focus our desires on an obstacle to what we want. For example, you may say, "I want this project done," when you mean "I hate this project and want it out of my life forever." Or maybe you just want the rest you will earn after completing the project.
• Step 3: Fantasize. Once you get to the heart of your desire, give it some room. Think the desire. Visualize the desire. Edit the picture to make it just how you want it. For example, if you want a vacation, imagine where you are, whom you are with (if anyone), what you are doing, and how you are feeling. As your fantasy becomes more specific, your desire will build and gain power.
• Step 4: Allow new and conflicting desires. Once you hear the voice of your own desires, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by all that emerges. And sometimes two desires collide—like the desire to play all day and the desire to make money. Holding so much potential can feel overwhelming at times. But this feeling usually comes from the thought that you need to immediately do something with the desire. Though introverts are less prone to this impatience, society's cry to "do" is persistent. Replace the order to do with permission to allow. Simply allow the new desire, knowing its time may be sooner or later. Let conflicting desires sit side by side.
• Step 5: Allow fulfillment. Once you empower the desire within you, it will automatically move toward fulfillment. When you feed conflicting desires, you engage your creative capacity to create higher-level solutions. The more you trust your desires and allow them to emerge, the less effort you have to expend. You notice an ad in the paper, a friend calls with a proposal, you are moved by an invisible force to act. All that is left for you to do is to respond and say "thank you."
NATURE'S RHYTHM, SOCIETY'S RHYTHM
In his fascinating book, Time Shifting, Stephan Rechtschaffen discusses another factor in how we experience time: entrainment. Entrainment is what happens when you set two pendulum clocks to swing at different rates, and then put them side-by-side. They start to move together. Since this phenomenon was discovered in the 17th century, applications have been found everywhere, from synchronized menstrual cycles among women who live together, to separate heart muscle cells that pulse together after being placed together. In the same way, entrainment affects our sense of time. People speed up in the hubbub of an airport, whether or not they need to. You tap your foot to the beat of the music. A mother holds a sleeping baby over her chest, and the two begin to breathe in perfect harmony.
When we were more dependent on nature and its seasonal fluctuations, the rhythms of time were cyclical. Now we experience time as a straight line with a beginning and an end—or many disconnected beginnings and endings. Rechtschaffen discusses the overall shift in our rhythm that came with the Industrial Revolution:
If the days, the seasons, even lifetimes come around again, then time never runs out. What is not completed in the circle of today may be accomplished tomorrow. If not this year, then the next; if not in this lifetime, then in another...By contrast, our modern rhythm is distinctly unnatural, mirroring society's pull, not the magnetism of the earth. We're taught to think quickly, act quickly, accomplish quickly... We have superimposed on nature the rhythms of greed, of materialism, of "having it all."
Rechtschaffen also reminds us that nature is still with us and many different rhythms are available in modern life.
THE RHYTHM OF INTROVERSION
For better and for worse, introverts are more naturally attuned to nature's rhythms. Because we are internally oriented, we can more easily entrain with the rhythms of the body; and the rhythms of the body respond to the cycles of nature—i.e., light and dark, heat and cold.
As we discussed in Chapter 1, introverts have been found to experience a higher level of mental arousal on an ongoing basis. We seek to reduce the added stimulation offered by society. By contrast, extroverts, who experience a lower level of arousal, look to society for excitement. It follows that extroverts would be more easily entrained with the rhythms of society, and another set of studies support this contention.
These studies, reported in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology between the years 2000 and 2006 (one included over six thousand subjects from thirty-nine different countries) consistently found that extroverts, when compared to introverts, are more responsive to external rewards, especially those of a social nature. Extroverts also seemed to be better at controlling and maintaining consistent and pleasant moods. Introverts, on the other hand, experienced greater variability in their mood states, fluctuations that were less dependent on external rewards.
The findings suggested that extroverts have an advantage, but I read the results a different way. If the goal is to be consistently pleasant, extroverts do seem to have the advantage. But if the goal is to be attuned to the life cycle and its creative potential, I think introverts have the edge. We only need to reconnect with our power source.
When I first saw these findings on extroverts and pleasantness, I was pissed (again), and I figured out why. I have been bothered for a while now by a New Age trend that, at its extreme, suggests that thought control can and should eliminate negative feelings. This, to echo Rechtschaffen, is unnatural—it is flow without the ebb, day without night, expression without examination, yang without yin. And this societal orientation excludes introverts.
But, as quickly as I identified my anger, I realized that I don't really care—demonstrating both my fluctuating mood and my lack of response to social rewards. The extroverts can have society. I have nature.
To come full circle, as introverts like to do, time to think is not only a luxury for introverts; it is a necessity.We need to pull our pendulums away from social rhythms and access the life-giving power of our own minds—our wonderfully aroused minds. Let's look at some ways to expand time.
Shift from "take" to "give." I've been holding onto an article for years, waiting for the time I had need of it. It's a piece I found in Parabola magazine, titled "Learning to Die," by Brother David Steindl-Rast. In the article, the Benedictine monk discusses the awareness that comes with the "rule of St. Benedict," which is to "have death at all times before one's eyes." The death he talks about is not the artificial death imposed by goals, but quite the opposite: the giving over of goals, purpose, control. Throughout his article, he reveals how the language of "taking" is embedded into our thinking, and how this mentality has created "an 'underdeveloped nation' with regard to meaningful living." He observes: "We say we take time; but we really live only if we give time to what takes time. If you take a seat, it is not a very comfortable way of sitting down but if you let the seat take you that's more like it." To Steindl-Rast, this giving over, this attitude of "leisure" is a virtue.
Practice giving. Give time to what you value. Give up a little control. Work and play from a position of abundance, from an attitude of leisure.
Bring your pendulum with you. Remember that half of us are introverted, so we have a huge impact on entrainment. Regularly calibrate your pendulum to your breath, to the rhythm of nature, to the pace of your thoughts. When you are among people, you'll feel more pulls to adjust your pendulum. Instead of focusing on the loudest and fastest, though, look at the quiet introvert reading in the corner, the grass below you, or consider how long it took to construct the building you are in. In conversations, ground yourself—gravity opposes entrainment—and draw on the following Bill of Rights for support:
• Unless someone is bleeding or choking or otherwise at risk of imminent demise, you have a right to think about it.
• Someone else's pressure is their pressure. You have a right to let them keep it.
• If someone makes a request and demands an immediate response, say "no." It is easier to change a "no" to a "yes" than it is to get out of something.
• You have a right to not know until you know, especially when you're asked a big question. We all carry around a sense of knowing—that internal, inexplicable sense of when something is or isn't right, but we can't access that sense while under pressure.
• You have a right to obtain more information. If you don't know, find out more.
• You do not have to jump in with affirming comments when you don't feel it. You have a right to remain silent.
Flow in circular time. This principle has been an immense help to me in writing this book. With my deadlines, both internal and external, I can get caught up in linear time, trying to push forward from beginning to end. If I'm stuck, I keep pushing. I try to flow without ebbing. I resist nature.
The introverted, or yin, principle teaches us to go back, to reflect. When we marry this concept with the forward-moving yang, we start to cooperate with nature and ride its energy. So now, when I'm stuck, I just flow around the block and return to it later. The cycling back works so well that I often fill in the blanks soon after I move forward. It's that old phenomenon of losing something: when you finally give up the search, you instantly remember where you last placed it.
In my moving-forward mode, I was also accumulating piles of material to read and organize. I kept telling myself that I couldn't afford to attend to the piles, even though I was eager to dig in to the material. Something hit me as I was writing about Japan and its yin nature. I gave—here's where I would normally say "spent" or "used" or "took"—a day to the piles. I gave a precious writing day to reading, creating files for material on each chapter, clearing the space in my office. I decided to call it my yin day, and to have a yin day every week. Now my papers don't turn into piles. In Judeo-Christian traditions, the Sabbath is a kind of yin day, a day to rest from labor, to reflect, to atone for sins, and to express gratitude for blessings. College students know the joy of a yin day after finals, when they get to scoop up all the scattered papers and attend to the wonderfully mundane needs that they neglected while studying for finals.
When we embrace the option to cycle back, we not only get a chance to attend to neglected details, we can also reevaluate and correct the mindless agreements we make while socially entrained. For example, if you say "yes" to an engagement because you can't think of an excuse, you can go back and correct the conversation.
Read or watch time-benders. Shake up your sense of time by entering a new dimension. Pick up a DVD of old Twilight Zone episodes. Read Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. In his brilliant, beguiling, and extremely short novel, each of the genius' dreams create a different world operating on a different time system: in one, time flows backwards; in another, people live forever; and in another, people live their lives in one day.
Embrace limbo. If you have had the experience of traveling to another country, you know that getting there can try your patience. I think back to the experience of cruising the Caribbean with my husband and how much we had to go through to just get to the boat—airplane, bus transport, customs, all with maze-like corrals for waiting in line. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I remember thinking of all the time we were wasting in these uncomfortable settings. Then the thought occurred to me, "If we have this much time to waste, we have time." What I realized is that the process of getting there was transforming my sense of time. After a period of huffing and checking my watch, I had to submit to a different pace. Once I did this, I was really on vacation.
It can feel wonderful to indulge in time, to wander aimlessly, to sit blankly. I especially enjoy sitting with the warm sun on my face, knowing I c
ould move, but deciding that would be too much trouble. Just letting time pass, just breathing the air. Letting time pass. How wonderful.
You don't need to be on vacation to have this experience. Just decide to let time pass. Allow yourself to shift from feeling you have to race time to feeling you have time, all the time in the world. And you will.
"Time is short, but it is wide."
"How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards."
—Spanish sayings
Chapter 8:
The Right to Retreat
It's cluttered. It's cramped. It's noisy. Buzzing, chattering, piles fill this world.
I was raised in this place. I had a hard time following the rules. I got tired of buzzing.
One day, when I was carrying my daily load of clutter, I heard a voice from beyond. Now with piles so high, I'd never heard the beyond. But Beyond called, "I am sky. I am wide." I said, "Shh, you can't say wide. You'll get arrested." Sky replied, "I can't be held." I said, "Can you hold me?" Sky replied, "I have plenty of room," and her gusting winds took me up and away.
I landed in a meadow. I heard, for the first time—nothing. I danced and did somersaults, lay down in a bed of grass, felt the breeze.
And for the first time, I heard my heart, and I knew who I was.
—Laurie Helgoe
In the longer version of this monologue, Clutteria, I describe a cartoon world committed to constant buzzing. The laws of Clutteria prohibit listening, televisions are on at all times, and conversation competitions are held regularly. All citizens must contribute to the clutter piles, which shut out any awareness of worlds beyond. Citations are written for anyone attempting to organize the piles. And escaping is extremely difficult.
Escaping is also extremely pleasurable. I was well into my thirties, and well into my therapy, before I allowed myself to indulge a long-held fantasy of taking a retreat—all by myself. To a married and working mother of two small boys, my increasingly frequent and subversive fantasy of leaving everything troubled me. These were people I loved, people who needed me. So when I realized that I could leave everyone and still have them, I was giddy.
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