Wants2Fly:

I don't visit THE BORG in their hives. I'm also an introvert, very much the hermit, and I love it. I'm not going to break into song or anything, but could it be you're looking for validation in all the wrong places?

The Brits have an immensely mature tolerance for eccentricity of any type, regarding their loners almost affectionately.

The typical American extrovert, however, just KNOWS that quiet types are the "bad seeds" of society --- unibombers, spies, football-hating wimps, pyromaniacs, hubby-bobbers, clock tower snipers, and molesters of small animals.

I'm not advocating that you pack up and move to Europe. I'm saying that in America guruism is a commercial and power-seeking enterprise, a den of conformity and authoritarianism, in short a Borg bastion. Why would an introvert intentionally subject herself to such forces?

To be introverted is to be mostly inner-directed. In my opinion we cannot be true to ourselves if we choose to live on other-directed terms, even in our leisure time! Showing up at a Borg hive and talking back to them demonstrates dependency on them. It advertises that one is willing to settle for whatever table scraps of acceptance may be given to an inner-directed and very out-of-place person in guru-land. It advertises that you want something they have, that you are willing to submit to their terms in order to get it.
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I think you might want to ask yourself WHAT'S THE PAYOFF? Why have you given away your power to them? Why are you spending your time and your life with such people, in such places? Why are you not congregating with and nourishing and validating people who think as you do? Why do you feel you need to COMPENSATE for being as you are? Is it a biological defect or mental disability to be an introvert or nonconformist? What do you think Einstein was?

If I were to drop into that Sufi workshop today, I would know what I was looking for --- PUNISHMENT. I don't care to relive the old family scenario of being given a certain amount of "belonging" at a very high price --- the rejection of my core being.