Boundless energy from child to adult

Being the youngest in my family, you forget how limitless the energy of children is. For two days I have had two of my youngest relatives round who were granted a trip to Legoland. I've always had an inner child in me and invited myself along in words of that effect. It was great fun but I got also understand the discipline placed on by their dad and grandma aswell as the reason why they wanted to run off to the next ride. They live in a dream world full of imagination and by the end of the day, even my bursts of excessive energy were starting to burn out. As we sat outside for a barbecue in the evening and the little ones got down and ran around, jumping on the trampoline, I realised that I was beginning to feel more comfortable on the adult table, where discussion felt relevant to me and I just wanted to lie flat on the fall and drop off the sleep. We grow up and ten or so years ago I was their age and I wonder what they will be like in ten years with their innocent smiles being wiped off their faces, while I still feel my remains.

I suppose it's all about 'the great circle of life'

Understanding the depth of an Introverted (INFJ)

Do you ever wonder what your place in the world is? Do you strive for meaning in pretty much everything? My mind is deep and complex and I have this intuition and intense understanding in people that not many others have. Sometimes I feel lost.

I have always been interested in who I am and where I am going in this life and have taken personality test after personality test. I've been naïve and I may continue to do so reading through article after article on the Myers-Briggs personality type websites and searching for who I am and how to improve myself and with those traits I always thought I was an INFP (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perception) type, because I have this great curiosity in oneself and harmonising relationships and avoiding conflict. I then realised that these types are not very organised, and though I can be messy from time to time, I like structure, I like the familiar and routine and knowing what I am doing and that sets apart an INFP from INFJ (judging) also known as the Consoler, while the perceiving type is the Dreamer. They are both very similar.  I could be crazy. I know there are many people out there who find their type and feel like someone has written about their exact character but at the same time, I know we all different.

Personally, I think Introverts are more interested in this self searching thing, than Extraverts. Us Introverts look inside ourselves and process the information there when we find that quiet place away from the loud world to charge. Why should Extraverts contemplate the world at this depth when they gain their energy from the people and the vibrant environments they are in? On the other hand, I could be totally wrong. It's just that I find that the Extraverts, don't really take in this interest of personal psychology, quite in the way that us Introverts do and that can sometimes make us question ourselves.

Being a part of the rarest personality type (apparently),  I sometimes wish that other types would have the same understanding that people like me do. I don't feel understood, I feel like I have to understand myself on my own and then when I have, then thats when it can be shared.

It can be difficult being an Introvert. We search for the words in our heads that cannot just flow our naturally like the Extraverts. We pause and we trip over our words, loose confidence and let our sentences taper off, feeling that what we had to say probably wasn't important, but really it was. We talk when we have something to say, not because we want to fill in the gaps.

However, I like seeing the world like this. Philosophical dicussions in our heads or with our closest friends and why things happen and observing the world; people watching, wondering what their story is, where they are going and what brings them to this particular place and this particular time of day, when you and a thousand other people are there too.

After all like John Lennon wrote in Imagine "You may say, I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one"

Everyone can dream, but the word 'dream' can mean many things, such as a goal, or a thought or a fantasy..

We are all open to the world of imagination, no matter who we are.

Overcoming vulnerable moments of suffering...

"Discovering the light of hope"

Vulnerability is when you are exposed to your fears. This may not be a direct exposure, but there is that possible chance that your fears could get in your way at these given moments.These fears can span from just a small scale, such as social phobia’s or large scale fears of ill health or death. As people we fear many things and no matter how big or small they are, they can seem the size of mountains. We want to appear strong in the eyes of our peers, families and friends. We don’t want to be weak.

Even if we disgust the fears that we have, they can still eat up us away if we let them. It is only our minds that can tell us how we feel and what we do and we can change our approaches if life can seem unbearable, particularly if we are fed up of suffering.  We suffer in different ways. We may have had a hard childhood, been bullied and stripped of self confidence or suffer from invisible conditions such as depression or anxiety. We may be trying to overcome losing weight or give up smoking.

I’ve been an anxiety sufferer; It can take a certain event to swallow you up into this dark hole. And though sometimes it has become unclear about what triggered this dark cloud, I know that my life was much more brighter when it wasn’t around. You could over think until you find an answer but even that can just make the problem worse and even contribute to a general over thinking problem.I’m a fighter but it let it bother me, because I was trying to so hard to make it right. Sometimes you have to do the opposite.

I have taken up knitting and I have felt more at peace with myself then I have ever have. My mind has been freed, unlocking my thoughts and peeling apart meanings that I have never understood. 

When we at our lowest, we have to believe that things will get better, even if that light of hope in the distance is the size of a pin prick. One positive thought is enough to get your started, even that is just a smile that feels fake on the sadness of your face. We think that we are the ones that are suffering. We feel that someone is out to get us, who has chosen us to suffer, but isn’t that really a gift, we have chosen to make a unwanted burden? If you hadn’t suffered, then you wouldn’t be that stronger person you are today.

My metaphor is: Life is like knitting. It can unravel or get knotted up at the most unexpected times and lead you to a dead end. If you pick up the wool and start from again, you may achieve the harmony in your life that you may not have had if you hadn’t stumbled. 

So not matter what you are suffering from, find something that you enjoy enough to distract you from your problem. You will realise that you are not alone and your problem is probably smaller than you think it is, because you can most likely do something about it. 

Take your fears and problems and split them into two categories:

1)   I can do something about this problem

2)   I can’t do anything about it, I just need to accept it and move on.

I know that a lot of people would want to choose the latter even they could do something to change it, because it is the easiest, but if you think about it,wouldn’t you achieve more if you take some patience and work for that harder number 1 solution?

Take those vulnerable idle moments and turn them around. Embrace these moments as an extra push to help improve and eventually you find where you want to go.

It's the constant effort that gets you through.