On Being Sensitive and an Introvert

I am sensitive and an introvert. I first found out I was an introvert when I took a Myers Briggs assessment in high school, and somehow the term clicked with me. I mostly get my energy from spending time alone, but it doesn’t mean that I hate people. I definitely have found I get exhausted after long gatherings with people. But I do enjoy one on one gatherings with people

I have come to accept being sensitive, but it also comes with its own disadvantages. I tend to take things very personally and this can often cause me to distance myself from people. I am also a perfectionist and this means I tend to set unrealistic standards for myself and for others, and I can be very self-critical to the point where I only focus on my weaknesses and things I don’t like about myself. When I was taking cello lessons, I would often take constructive feedback personally. I had an orchestra teacher in high school who gave me very specific feedback in front of the class and I would get so upset, I would come home crying my eyes out because this teacher gave me criticism. But then I used my Buddhist practice to get better at handling her criticism. Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo helped me transform my attitude about the situation, and I started to see that my teacher was trying to help my grow and that in fact, I wasn’t the only student who was getting criticism in class for playing out of tune notes. Each person in the class received feedback for what they could improve upon. I am still working on not taking criticism personally, to be honest. These past four years I had been taking cello lessons with a new teacher and I often repeated the same pattern of getting defensive and upset when I got criticism. But I think chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo helped me see my own tendency to take criticism personally, and as hard as it was to change that tendency I gradually transformed the way I viewed my teacher giving criticism. I also realized that as much as I got upset with the teacher for setting these really high standards for my playing, I reflected and came to see that I also was setting these really high standards for myself. I think reading Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart helped me, because she talks about perfectionism and says that it’s deeply tied to feelings of shame, judgment and blame. It made me understand that shame is a very consuming experience and it can often make me feel alone and that I deserve to be punished because I’m a bad person, I fucked up, etc. But after seeing therapy and talking with people, I saw a lot of that negative thinking for what it was, and even though I didn’t magically get rid of the negative thinking I have started to gradually see these past few months how unhealthy that negative thinking is. I thought it was going to be an overnight transformation and that one magical day I was going to suddenly develop a thick skin and stop taking things personally. But it’s a daily challenge that I need to overcome. I am chanting to overcome my limitations and polish my strengths so that I can embrace myself better and develop more self-compassion as a result.

Author: The Arts Are Life

I am a writer and musician. Lover of music, movies, books, art, and nature. View all posts by The Arts Are Life