An Alpha Introvert

I had some photos taken recently in a place that's very special to me. I had planned with a friend to have her take photos for a new website I'm working on. The evening before she sent me a message saying that the light was really nice and maybe we could get some outdoor shots. I don't feel that comfortable posing for photos and I wasn't physically or mentally prepared. It was probably for the best that she took me by surprise. As we walked down the lane to the bog where turf has been cut for generations she remembered that I had talked about a special tree I visit there and so we walked down and took some photos beside it. A few years ago I planted a small birch tree that had seeded in my garden and needed to be moved. Underneath the roots I put some of my Dad's ashes in a simple ceremony with my friends, to honour his life and keep him near, so it has become Dad's tree.

I felt so comfortable there and she was so good at putting me at ease that something I had been dreading was actually really fun. I was really hoping the photos would reflect that and I wasn't disappointed. They show me in my natural habitat. I go there to think, to walk and just let my legs take me forward when I feel stuck, when I'm in pain, when I've pushed everything down for so long that I'm numb and disconnected from myself. I always emerge from the bog feeling changed, something shifts, or loosens, or reveals itself when I'm there and I need that. I have a need for solitude. I find it difficult to feel my own emotions around other people. As I am pretty sensitive to energy I pick up on other people's feelings and it can be very distracting. But in the bog the energy is very clean and I know what I'm feeling is just about me.

I love a podcast and a few of my current favourites are

• https://www.whereareyougoing.co.uk/ with Katherine Carr - feeds the people watcher in me

• https://www.elizabethday.org/podcasts How to Fail - reframing failure help me be less afraid to keep trying and creating

• https://www.standardissuepodcast.com - feeds my feminist

  
  

So I was listening to How To Fail and Elizabeth Day was interviewing Richard Osman, (great episode which I highly recommend) and he described himself as an Alpha Introvert. My ears pricked up. He went on to explain that he tends to avoid social situations, preferring his own company but when he is in a social situation he likes to have some agency & make a difference in the room. (Apologies to Richard, I'm paraphrasing) I think this is me too! I was excited to have a new way to describe and better understand myself.

Driving home today with my MP3 player on shuffle Mary Chaphin Carpenter's song I have a Need for Solitude came on and again it described perfectly why I need to go to the bog.

I have a need

For cool, verdant spaces

Beneath the trees

Secret empty places

Nobody knows

So no one will intrude

I have a need

For solitude

But you can find me, when the light is changing

At that time of day when there's

Little day remaining

You can find me where I've been waiting

Waiting here for you

Photo credit Leeanne McIntyre