[Wants2Fly]

I spent last weekend at a Sufi seminar at a lake house, where I lived in close quarters with 7 other women, the sole male who attended, and the male workshop leader.

I didn't much care for his methods. I am more interested in seminars that lead me deeper into prayer. He was spouting communication theory that is at least 3 decades old and leading in a confrontational, encounter group kind of way.

I figured if I didn't like his way of doing things, I should absent myself, and for some sessions I did. In one session where I was sitting, he said before everyone that I was not participating, that I hang on the edges of the group.

This hurt like swallowing a hot chile pepper whole.

This has been my shame for so long. I remember over-hearing my father tell my mother when I was in junior high school that "Our daughter is a loner." When I go to professional conferences, I marvel at how others are able to form attachments so easily, babbling about virtually anything with people they hardly know.

My Ts have explained that I am an introvert. We are a minority & need time to refresh ourselves after being with people. Extroverts are energized by being with people.

Nonetheless, I felt as if my Great Secret Shame had been revealed to everyone. As soon as he went out for a smoke, I left the group to be alone and pray.

Eventually, I could see that his statement -- even if it was intended to embarrass me, and I don't know for sure that it was -- is just a statement. It's only a negative trait if I make it to be so.

I was able for the first time to be okay with being an introvert. I've done what I can to develop communication strategies to compensate -- but it's likely I may always seem a bit odd to the 80+ percent of the population who are extroverts. Society also needs people who hang back, carefully consider the direction being taken by the majority, don't rush to jump on the bandwagon.

With hindsight, I wish I'd said: "So what? I hang back. What of it?"
It doesn't matter though, because this self-acceptance is so deep that the next time someone tries to make me feel "less than" for this, I now have the inner strength to say, "You're right. Extroversion ain't me, babe. What of it?"

Of course, there may still be times when I wish that I were able to mix more easily. Just as I may wish to look like Raquel Welsh and be as sophisticated as Audrey Hepburn. Yet, there is a gift in accepting who I am and am not. It has taken me most of my life to feel okay in a deep way with being an outsider. So this is grand epiphany for me.

[cat_eye]

I'm totally an introvert, too. (((((wants2fly)))))

[dalila]

What is a sufi?

[adieuolivaw]

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.
.
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.

[allautumn]

Hey, way to go Wants2fly. Teachers still pull that stuff? Hard to believe, especially for the subject matter. Good for you for accepting that about your self. If everybody was extroverted there would be no such thing as extroverted or introverted... the only reason that people are attracted to extroverts is the stigma that society places on typeA personalities and the like. There's no reason to be like that unless you're a salesman or a performer or something. the rest of us humble folk shouldn't be looked down upon for doing our own thing. Without introverts, things like the internet wouldn't exist! (Geek stereotype, a joke LOL. Sorry, my room mate makes part of the internet work, he'd laugh at that. Meant to indicate introverts are SMART!)

WHAT IS SUFISM?
It is much more than what I can explain to you. Living and worshipping through sometimes intense rituals, sometimes being segregated from their societies through their personal rituals or beliefs. Ever heard of a (whirling) Dervish? That is a sect of Sufism. Sufism was made famous in the Western world by extreme Sufism, public acts of ritual worship, some meant to punish the body and cleanse the spirit and mind for god through suffering. Ripleys believe it or not type of stuff witnessed by tourists that roused curiosity in Europe and America. Not all Sufis are so extreme. There is a focus on self-denial, imposing poverty and seclusion, to become closer to god, in the same way that many Catholic saints did. Sufis are known for being to Islam (at least the parts of Islam that recognize Sufism as Muslim, because some sects do not) as monks or nuns, or most extremely, as saints are to Catholics. To be Sufi is to be DEVOTED, mind spirit and body, to god, in the way that St. Francis was for example, giving all your life for god and god's intent for us as humans but not necessarily following a set of written rules. Some Sufis do not even necessarily follow the Qur'an, rather have their own ultimate truth that they live by, in accordance to what their heart tells them god would want. It is a way of life, moreso than religion it's self, as it is a very personal ongoing relationship with the creator that is lived every moment.

A small description of Sufism that I scammed off a website:
Sufism or tasawwuf, as it is called in Arabic, is generally understood by scholars and Sufis to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, however, many Muslims and non-Muslims believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Nevertheless, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the foremost scholars of Islam, in his article The Interior Life in Islam contends that Sufism is simply the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam.

After nearly 30 years of the study of Sufism, I would say that in spite of its many variations and voluminous expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is quite simple. It is that the Sufi surrenders to God, in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness (one's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, as well as one's sense of self) as gifts of God or, more precisely, as manifestations of God.

That is all.

[Myzen]

Wants2Fly wrote,

"My Ts have explained that I am an introvert. We are a minority & need time to refresh ourselves after being with people. Extroverts are 'energized' by being with people."

Hi Wants2Fly,

I found all of your post helpful, and just selected this little bit as it strikes a chord for me.

I am sick to death of the mantra that 'to be OK you have to be around people' . I can put on the act, and mix in, but I am always tired out by the force of other people's egos. There is no energising effect for me, and I so understand the point you make that we have to 'refresh ourselves' after being with people (especially extroverts, or people anxiously pretending to be extroverts).

I have a counsellor friend, who I have known for a long time, and she is always giving me this 'mix in with people' stuff. She regards relationships as the be all and end all of life.
What she overlooks is that her own intimate relationships tear her apart - she is now going through her fourth horrible relationship break up since I first knew her. It's an agony to watch, although I help as much as I can. This time it's her marriage that's coming apart. She can't give up her obsession that's she is going to find her answer inside someone else. I've tried to talk to her about this in the past but she blocks me off, she won't go there.

If being a so called 'people person' can be so destructive to self and others, what is the harm in staying on the sidelines?

Wants2Fly, being a self contained person is not second class in any way. I too have been called a 'loner' by thoughtless people I knew, and more than once I have been the only one there for them when they were in trouble.

Good thoughts to you. Myzen

PS - A Buddhist monk once wrote "The enlightened person has no friends and no enemies". I think I am just beginning to understand the wisdom of these words.