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Before people get the wrong idea of what I'm about to say here, I just wanna say that I'm aware that there's this (probably unhealthy) tendency in our society of favoring extraversion over introversion or even pathologizing introversion. That's not what I intend to do here. I'm trying to get a deeper understanding of myself and how introversion actually works. So there's this idea that introverts tend to get drained from social situations and then need to "recharge" by being alone, whereas extraverts tend to get energized from social situations and get bored and then drained when they are alone. Judging from my general behaviour over pretty much all my life, it seems reasonable to label myself as an introvert. However, over the past few years, I started reflecting on this more and noticed the following tings: I do often get drained from social situations and need some time alone before I feel able to be social again. But, when I take a closer look at why I get drained, it's always because of a specific problem I have with the situation or with myself. I tend to want to hide my problems or the fact that I have a problem at all and that hiding takes a lot of energy, which leaves little left to interact and then I beat myself up for not being able to interact, which takes even more energy and that's basically how everything goes downhill and I end up just waiting out feeling miserable until I can finally be alone again. (I'd love to give some concrete examples to make this more tangible, but right now I can only think of the recent ones from the last few days, which lead me to write this post and they're kind of too embarrassing for me to tell them here right now I will try to post some concrete examples in the future.) When there is no problem and I feel comfortable and safe in a social situation that I'm in, I do in fact get a lot of energy from being with people and talking and engaging in activities together with them. When I have issues with myself, I tend to stay away from social situations. When I'm fine with myself, I tend to seek out social situations and doing stuff together. All this got me curious about what will happen if I work on resolving my issues bit by bit and learn how to integrate them, so that I can accept myself more infront of other people. Time will tell. What I'd be interested in hearing from you, are the two following things: 1) What is your personal experience with this? Can you pinpoint why exactly you get drained? Does it happen when everything is totally fine? Or is there something that if it was different, you wouldn't get drained? If you keep in mind what you've read here and take a look at why you get drained the next time it happens, what do you find? 2) What could be some general explanations of why introverts/extraverts get drained/energized? I mean, stated as it usually is, this idea is just a mere description. And, at least to me, it doesn't seem like a very useful one. Because it tells you little about what is actually going on there. Merely putting labels at people's behaviour doesn't explain it. So what are the actual mechanisms which determine the emotional landscape and the behaviour of so-called introverts and extraverts respectively? (Didn't quite know which subforum to post this in, hope it fits at least somewhat here.)

Where did you get this idea from? (I feel like this all the time, too.) Do you? Why not discuss with them what you were thinking about? That way, both of you could learn something new.

@Buba Do you know where your pain comes from?

Do you know about another source of information then? Where have you heard/read about it?

@Lauritz Thanks for making the video and sharing it! Dark room retreats sounded very appealing to me since the first time I heard of them and I'm quite sure I will try it out at some point. How exactly did you get your room pitch-black? Or was it the whole flat? Have you been to toilet at all within those 40 hours?

@LukeThomas Here it says that the book doesn't mention Coral. Where have you read/heard about it?

Haven't read it myself yet, but "Cupid's Poisoned Arrow" may be interesting for you.

@Pointer The only thing I'm asking you for is to give me the source (book, video, article, ...) where you've heard what you are saying.

What the fuck You just illustrate for 20 years and then you've mastered it. I think it's impossible for you to not master it, if you truly care about it and just do it long enough.

Ha, I got a similar thing happening to me right now. I just know something is very wrong with my spine (very bad neck pain and quite decreased mobility with my head) and I know that as soon as it's better, I will start taking care of my spine more, get a routine going to keep it healthy as long as possible. I don't get why a year would teach you something, though. I find it hard to imagine that a made up abstract entity would have the capacity or motivation to mobilize its energies with the intention of pedagogically influencing you

@Pointer So where have you got this information from??

If you actually do that, I will give kudos to you. @aurum I have zero idea what the situation in this house is. But I like the idea of children expressing dissent with what is happening within their homes and trying to do something about it if they genuinely feel really unwell. You have to consider that you learn basically all social behavior, especially dealing with conflicts, and also things like your worldview and your sense of self and how you're situated in the world, from your parents and other family members. I imagine if one feels truly hopeless, doing anything is better than nothing. If other people realize your feelings that something is going really unacceptably wrong, someone might actually have an idea about how to start sorting some things out.

This! Also, @saint_charming7, reflect on whether your "introversion" is nothing but a symptom of this exact problem that you probably don't just have with your ex-girlfriends! I have a thread investigating this question.

Going out to dinner is a waste of money, killing time watching a movie is suicide of your higher self, going shopping (I assume you're talking about buying clothes) is killing humanity. Don't make this into a "she wants X, but I want Y, so we have to negotiate, because that's what people do when they're in a relationship" kind of thing. If she wants to spend time with you, find something that is worth doing and don't give in to doing harmful nonsense because she can't come up with proper activities. Maybe slight modifications of her proposals would already work. For example, you could try to find the healthiest restaurants and try them out for dinner and research and learn about health together in that process; really dive deep into what are good movies and why, and selecting ones with the goal of being enriched as a human being by the experience of watching the movie, instead of just killing time with it; going to fleemarkets, second hand shops, ethical clothing companies, modifying old clothes you already have, making clothes yourself; reflecting about why she feels the need to do some particular thing with you and question that together. On the other side, you can propose that you would like to meditate together and tell each other about your experiences afterwards; read a chapter from a different book each and talk about what's written in there; learning guitar together. There are PD techniques that work particularly well with a second person, e.g. image streaming. Do you still feel like you would need more time alone if you picture your time together more like this? Maybe yes, but if you can influence your relationship more in this direction, she will probably understand better why that is important to you and might develop more of a need to spend time alone for herself.

I don't know about shroom tea, but when I eat on truffles or shrooms, the trip is basically over (meaning the effects just decrease into nothing). Just in case you were thinking about eating your stuff during the trip. It's also a good strategy to back off if things get too intense As for tripping alone in the forest, for me this would be a great setting, but you have to find that out for yourself if it works for you. I definitely wouldn't say "don't do it, it's too dangerous", you have to know for yourself what you can handle and what you can take responsibility for. Since my biggest issues revolve around social anxiety and self image bullshit and my fear of death is very low, I'd be much more scared of a tripsitter than of a bear

I also wanna hear descriptions of Coral... Where do you people get this information from?

No I don't But I'm curious what that dragon actually was. If you don't wanna talk about it, that's fine.

How did you come to the conclusion that you lost 500g in 3 months Your shit already weighs that much, your weight varies probably by about 1-3kg every day... Have you considered water fasting?

I'm quite sure this is something I have to do in my life. I'm VERY reluctant to making it into my one life purpose though. How far are you into this? What challenges are you currently facing? Can you show some of your recent work?

Maybe giving a few more specifics would be useful ^^

Aspiring TJ Reeves challenges Mighty Leo for the "Most-Holistically-Developed-Dude-on-the-Forum"-Title, emphasizing his challenge by pointing to his superior reputation-to-post ratio, and Mighty Leo decides to remove the reputation feature once and for all? WTF

@sleeperstakes From what source did you learn about the stages Turquoise and Coral?

@khalifa So did you actually buy this shit? Is there another source, one that I can afford? Where does "Coral" fit into this? It looks very different from the Clare Graves setup, what's the connection between the two?

@TJ Reeves What sources can you recommend to get a detailed understanding of Spiral Dynamics theory?

From taking various kinds of drugs, I learned how malleable my emotional experience and my perspective on life are. When I got into personal development, health and spirituality, I learned that there are tons of possibilities to increase the quality of my life. I tried out a bunch and saw that it works. I actually don't get how people can still think about suicide after being confronted with all this theory. What's your life situation like, what do you do all day? I'm gonna make a prediction: You will move through your situation and later think how unnecessary it would have been to commit suicide.