Authenticity

A Guide to Living in Harmony with Your True Self

David Posen MD

• Publisher: Ambrosia
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781487002787
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mental Health & Wellbeing

From Dr. David Posen, the bestselling author of Is Work Killing You? and The Little Book of Stress Relief, comes a book about listening to your body, understanding your mind, and making better choices in your life.

For over thirty years, Dr. David Posen has counselled patients suffering from severe stress, anxiety, and depression. Over that time, he noticed a pattern. As our lives have become faster and increasingly fragmented, many of us have become disconnected from our true selves. Using a holistic approach that combines elements of physiology, psychology, and philosophy, Authenticity teaches readers to acknowledge and accept their true selves in order to make better and more informed life choices. Drawing on real-life examples from his experience in stress management, Dr. Posen has identified five common sources of conflict: personality traits, time and speed, sleep, values, and passions. For each of these areas, the solution is surprisingly simple. We must learn to live in a way that is authentic and true to our unique selves; we must live in harmony with who we truly are.

SECTION 1
INTROVERSION VS. EXTRAVERSION

CHAPTER 1
INTROVERTS AND EXTRAVERTS

My friend Peter is a real presence. He’s a big guy in every way. First of all, he’s 6'4" and weighs 235 pounds. He has a deep resonant voice, a hearty laugh, and an enthusiastic personality. He’s outgoing, funny, and gregarious, and anyone who ever saw him do musical comedy on stage still talks about his brilliant performances. I’d known Peter for over thirty years when he shocked me with a piece of information that I never knew or suspected. Here’s how it happened.

Peter called one night to say that he was coming to town to conduct a seminar at the University of Toronto.

I said, “That’s great! Can we have dinner after?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“When do you finish?”

“Five o’clock.”

“OK. How about we pick you up at the school around five thirty?”

“Actually, it would be better if you picked me up at my hotel at seven.”

“Why? We’ll lose half the evening that way.”

That’s when he laid it on me. “I’m an introvert and I need an hour or two to recover after a full-day workshop.” I was stunned! You could have knocked me over with a feather. This guy could command a room just by walking through the door. People loved being around him. If he’s an introvert, I thought, then I must be Rip Van Winkle. I couldn’t fathom what he was saying.

When I finally asked what he was talking about, Peter explained, “Introversion isn’t about whether or not you’re outgoing. It’s about how you get your energy. Teaching all day drains me. I need downtime to get my energy back.”

Thus began my education about introverts and extraverts: how they differ and what the significance is for each person and the people they interact with. This isn’t just interesting information. It has huge implications for how we manage our lives and how we understand and get along with others.

Then I thought about my own experiences as a presenter of lectures and seminars. I’m an extravert in terms of outgoing behaviour. But I’m also an extravert in the sense that after a speech or workshop, especially if it’s been lively and fun, I feel totally energized. I’m fully alert driving home and can feel “up” for hours after.

Which Side Are You On?

Susan Cain is a former Wall Street lawyer who left the high-powered legal world to start her own consulting firm. She then went on to write a landmark book about introversion, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Extensively researched and beautifully written, Quiet was a megabestseller and has since become a classic. In her introduction, Cain uses a self-assessment tool posing twenty questions that readers can answer true or false. It’s not a rating-scale exercise, but it helps people see where they stand on the introvert-extravert spectrum.

Here are some examples of introverting tendencies:

• I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities.
• I enjoy solitude.
• I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.
• People tell me that I’m a good listener.
• I tend to think before I speak.
• I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself.

Lesley Sword of Gifted & Creative Services Australia developed an Introversion-Extraversion Indicator that lists twenty-five characteristics of extraverts. Here is a sample:

• I like to interact with many people.
• I dislike time alone.
• I prefer variety in conversation to depth.
• In a new situation, I prefer to talk rather than listen.
• I often think out loud.
• I get energy by being with people.

There are two important caveats to any self-rating scales and the scores that result. First, most tests are subjective, not scientifically objective and precise. The second is that the terms “introvert” and “extravert” are inclinations or predispositions that exist on a spectrum, not a strict dichotomy where you’re clearly either one or the other. We all fall somewhere on the continuum between introversion and extraversion. It’s helpful to think in terms of preferences or tendencies rather than absolute labels where you’re on one extreme end or the other.

Most of us have a mix of both introvert and extravert traits. Statistically, 25 to 30 percent of the population are introverts, and 70 to 75 percent are extraverts. However, according to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, the ratio in America is 50:50. There appears to be no gender difference in these groups.

Introverts Can Be Outgoing

One of the eye-opening lessons I learned from my friend Peter was that introverts aren’t necessarily quiet, retiring types. They are often lively and gregarious. Here’s a story that brought this home to me in a major way: I spent the week of my fiftieth birthday in Minneapolis with my twin sister and her family. We went out one night to a karaoke bar — a first for me — and it was a lot of fun. There were about a dozen in our group, but one woman particularly really got into it. She was animated and demonstrative and had a great singing voice. She seemed like a cross between Shirley MacLaine and Liza Minnelli in their primes or Beyoncé and Lady Gaga today. She brought the house down with her rendition of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Whenever there was a lull, the emcee would call on her to do another song. She was terrific. We loved it.

Her performance, though, was a real shock to all of us. We’d known this woman for a long time as a soft-spoken, sweet, somewhat reserved, albeit warm and friendly, individual. What we saw that night was a totally different person. It was like she’d gone into a phone booth as Clark Kent and come out as Superman (or, in this case, Wonder Woman). She was dancing and prancing and singing up a storm like the best stage performers in Vegas. But I was the most stunned of all. After all, I’d been married to this woman for ten years! I’d just never seen that side of her before.

Most introverts are actually quite sociable and engaging, and they enjoy other people’s company. Like extraverts, they get a boost in mood from interaction with other people. But only for so long. There’s a limit to their tolerance for long periods of socializing.

NOTE: Introversion and extraversion are two aspects of what we call “temperament,” which is a collection of inherited traits. Among the many aspects of temperament are characteristics such as activity and energy level, adaptability, mood, distractibility, persistence, and sensitivity. I’m choosing to focus on only one area of temperament relating to introversion and extraversion because of the impact this information has had on my patients. Self-awareness in this area has helped them understand themselves better (often for the first time) and then to live their lives differently based on these insights. In many cases it’s been profoundly eye-opening and even liberating.

CHAPTER 2
BACKGROUND HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY

Dr. Brian Little is a brilliant, engaging, funny, and award-­winning psychology professor, previously at Carleton University in Ottawa and Harvard, and most recently at Cambridge.

I first heard Dr. Little on a radio interview in the 1980s and was riveted by what he had to say. I wrote away for his article “Personality Myths about Leaders,” in which he discussed a fascinating premise. He explained that introverts and extraverts have different levels of activity and arousal in the cerebral cortex of the brain. Who do you think has more? You might surmise that extraverts — with their outgoing, energetic personalities — would have more cortical activity, and that introverts — who often seem quieter, even shy — would have less. Here’s the surprise: it’s the other way around. Paradoxically, introverts have more electrical activity than extraverts. That explains a lot in terms of behaviour but also in terms of stress.

“You might expect that lively, noisy extraverts have more electrical activity in their brains than quiet, reserved introverts. Paradoxically, it’s the other way around.”

A patient of mine was describing her shifts in mood and energy during and after busy social activities. She could be the life of the party, chatting and schmoozing with the best of them. But then she’d get tired, a little irritable and a bit flat. I thought of Dr. Little’s article, so I asked if she was an introvert or an extravert. She said, “Oh, I’m an extravert!” Suspecting the opposite, I ran the science by her and suggested that she might actually be an introvert. The very notion shocked her. It seemed totally incongruous. A lot of her professional and community activities involved social gatherings, networking, and glad-handing (she was involved in politics) — and she was really good at it.

But then she had one of those lightbulb moments. “This is amazing. I mean, I can work a room as well as anyone! But it exhausts me. This explains so much!” This simple piece of information clarified experiences that she’d never understood before. For example, she sometimes declined social invitations even though she thought of herself as a real “people person.” She was now able to let go of the guilt she felt when she opted to be alone. She also understood h...