Can you relate to this?
Scenario 1
You work intensely with people all day. It is 6:00 (of course you don’t get out right at 5!) and you have got to hit the road home. But a neighbor/co-worker needs a ride home today with you. So you don’t even get that alone time before you walk in the door to partner, children…people ready to be with you
Scenario 2
It’s vacation time! But you don’t vacation alone or even with just your partner. Vacation means with friends, extended family…people ready to chat, play, BE with you! Activities! On the go! Meals with the whole gang!
Scenario 3
Family, friends, your partner’s childhood friend…they are visiting, staying with you, and don’t know their way around. It’s lovely to see them all…and because you are also their host and guide, you are very busy…people depending on you, eager to make the most of your time together…
Can you relate? It is wonderful when we do have people we actually love and like (the ones who drive us bonkers…that’s a post for another day)…
AND for the introvert/the empath, the HSP, it is really hard not to have enough alone time…or even just a little alone-transition time.
I know I really fight my grumps taking over in these situations.
I used to drive home, and while Washington, DC afternoon traffic was a bear (won worst traffic in the U.S. several years running), it was just me in the car, so I had some transition time. Very helpful!
Now I have a home office, and I even find it difficult to have the last client of the day leave and have to immediately head upstairs and directly into helping with the last-minute preparations before dinner guests arrive.
I really need some alone transition time before I am ready for social time.
Now I have to say, I have not personally solved how to navigate this situation. However, speaking to both of us here, here are some of my thoughts:
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Do STOP, even for a conscious nano-second before you jump into The Social Situation.
Not just a pause—a real Stop!
Allow your body to have some real exhales, inhales, and more exhales.
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Do what you need to do to put away the day.
Notice the locking of the filing cabinet or the taking off of the uniform, the closing down of the computer. Brush the energy off of your body. You can see these don’t take much time.
Physically, energetically, and mentally put the day away.
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Notice the transition.
Work done for this period. Leaving these people. Savor this moment now.
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Use Time Bubbles.
If you have read my post here, you know about Nap Bubbles. That is a time bubble, and it can be used for anything.
Since we know time is relative—and the physicists say that time is not really linear as we experience it—we can create a little time warp in which, say, 1 minute or 5 minutes of transition contains 1 hour (or day/month/year—whatever we need) of S P A C E before the social contact.
So…P a u s e.
Think or picture however big this bubble in the timeline in your mind and energy needs to be.
Allow whatever amount of time that would help you transition to the social situation to fill however bubble.
Feel the additional “room” in the bubble.
Savor the feeling, the S P A C E.
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Come back into “regular time.”
Every time you consciously remember/re-embody that feeling of quiet space, your nervous system will learn how to do this with greater automaticity and ease, even as you head back into the world of people.
P.S.
You know, you and I should both do this…and later we should report back to one another. I mean this—let’s be accountable to one another!
P.P.S.
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