This book did for me “The Asperkid’s Secret Book of Social Rules” did, only it took it up a notch.

Asperkid’s showed me that I was different, just like many others.

This Book “Q. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”, began to show me how I could make peace with my differences.

In the commentaries before the book began, Adam S. McHugh, author of “Introverts” had this to say – “I think that many introverts will discover that, even though they don’t know it, they have been waiting for this book all their lives.” I found his statement to be empirically true.

I picked it up “By accident” while out of town, waiting for an event to begin. This “accident” went a long way towards the healing of my fragmented heart. Feelings of despair and disconnectedness were about to be faced head on with truth, and put to  rest.

Our entire lives, we are told to be bold, and gregarious and outgoing. This is the gold standard. As a child, I tried and tried to be that. What made other children popular, only manged to get me in trouble. Then whenever I was caught “Daydreaming” or “Doodling”, I was quickly encouraged to “Join in the group” or “Get with the program”. Which, as I mentioned before, got me into trouble. I was reprimanded for seemingly doing as I was told.

What I really had, all those years, without knowing it, was the ability to access some deeper parts of my being than when I was running around TRYING to be an extrovert. The deepness of my heart also caused me to feel the pain of that disconnection to a deeper level. So learning that I was indeed normal; born that way; wired differently, was a great joy to me.

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned from this book was this; Trying to be someone that I wasn’t, for years, had made not only sad and disconnected, but also tired and cranky. Always being what someone else wanted me to be was exhausting to me. Susan Cain gave me vocabulary for that. It wasn’t that I was shy, or didn’t like people. Far from it. I only needed to “Recharge my batteries” after a time.

These days we call it “Self care” or “Time, life balance”. I didn’t know to care for myself, or much less, how to balance anything. Learning that keeping my social circle smaller as opposed to larger, was of great value to me.

Small talk is annoying to me. If that is all there is, I’d rather not speak. That may sound rude, it did to me too, until I realized that it falls under the “Self care” title. One on one, deep conversation actually has the opposite effect, and truly energizes me. Leaving me with far more energy for the people and things that mean the most to me. Saving that energy for them is important for myself and those I come in contact with.

I am a huge proponent of having a place in my day for quiet. Quiescence. Down time. And now I know why. I read this book in 2012. I have been using it’s content ever since.

I could go on and on about this book, but, as Lavar Burton said on Reading Rainbow – “You don’t have to take my word for it.” Read for yourself. There is so much richness here. For me anyway, it’s impact was life changing!

Psalm 139:13-18 (ESV)

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.^[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.