I'm
IntrovertZCoach and my mission in life is to make sure that no introverted child today has to go through what my clients did who grew up in a time when people didn't understand introversion as a legitimate personality type. I hope you know by now that there's nothing wrong with introverts. Let me explain. I took a cruise last summer on Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of Seas. I was enrichment speaker. A woman attended my lecture who had two teenaged children. I had seen her teens on "quiet deck" reading books. In fact, they were my constant companions during first days of cruise. I, too, spent most of day reading on quiet deck. That’s because I'm an introvert and that's my idea of a cruise.
This mother complained that her kids weren’t “mixing”. They attended teen sessions on top deck for about 20 minutes and never went back. "Oh, I bet," I laughed. "They're totally introverts." Much to my surprise, she acted insulted and became defensive. Her kids weren't "introverts", they had been raised in another country and they just didn't make friends easily.
If this woman would have been open, I could have told her so many things about her children and what was so "right" about their behavior. But she had a negative definition of introversion and became so defensive, I changed subject.
The sad truth is that introverts have been stuck with a self concept defined by 70% majority extroverts who think there is something wrong with them. Introverts are not anti-social and they are not mentally ill. Far from it. Introverts enjoy company of others and are often exceptionally loving, especially those who are also intuitive, feeling and perceptive (iNfp's according to Myers-Briggs© personality types, called The Healer). If you would like more information about eight different types of introverts, please visit http://www.advisorteam.com emperament_sorter/about/
