Quiet Please

There is a funny type of people in existence who appear shy, sensitive and serious. 

Perhaps you know one, are married to one or are a parent to one. Maybe (said with a whisper) you are one: an introvert. 

History shows that introverts have, well, made history: Rosa Parks defiant on the bus, Albert Einstein focused in his lab, T.S. Eliot absorbed at his desk.

Susan Cain's book "Quiet" is a best seller, a book with a pristine white cover, all about the power of introverts. She makes a fascinating and thoroughly researched case that quiet folk, those of us who want to slink off to the corner at parties and find small talk awkward, are not quite as peculiar as we feel, or others think.  Susan, herself highly introverted, has been on a journey of listening to uncover what the quiet folk among us can bring to a world that just can't stop talking.

In our mentoring work at Lifespace Trust, we work with hundreds of individual young people each year. Our mentors create a safe place for them to tell their stories and work out how to work through tricky issues in their fast-paced lives - friendships, moods, body changes. Being a teenager is a full time job. Some young people are ready and willing (and brave enough) to chat away: "This is me, this is my story". 

While that's a great place to start, we also meet young people who feel like they don't fit in, are not sociable and mostly feel alone. Eye contact doesn't come easily, and as for participating in group work, that's just a horror. But the tragedy is they perceive they are worth-less because of it. 

As if talkativeness was the measure of our value.

One lad I know ate his lunch in the boys' toilets every day just to get away. In fact hiding is a common trait of introverts. We need time alone to recharge our energy. He truanted from school for most of a term with anxiety, until he eventually formed a strategy where he sat quietly in a chair in his bedroom before school for twenty minutes just to get ready for the day. He would...

1. write down some thoughts; 

2. take some slow deep breaths; 

3. and remind himself that he could take the day... just... one... hour... at a time. 

It turned things around for him. From quietness, came his strength. Not unlike a little chap called Mahatma Gandhi, the all-time King of Shy.

What's my point? Perhaps as a new school term starts there will be a fresh flush of anxiety. Worrying thoughts will interrupt sleep. Yes the qualities of friendliness and teamwork are valid qualities for all young people to aspire to learn, but let's not miss the fact that some young people (and parents too?) will need something that's quite rare in today's relentlessly noisy world: a quiet place where the outside noise is switched off, and there's nothing weird about that. 

It's not odd, just important. 

For some of us, it is from quietness we find our courage. 

From quietness, comes our creativity. 

From quietness, we can finally hear ourselves think. 

So, if you score zero on the introvert scale, be patient with those quiet people around you. They do have meaningful things to say but you may need to ask them what it is! And if you are introverted, give yourself quiet spaces to recharge. Even in the toilets at lunchtime if you must. 

The stark truth is this: Your presence makes a difference to the people around you more than you know. Quiet people really can help make sense of the world.

(images courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / (c) this article first appeared in Connection Magazine, September 2013, author: Chris Spriggs)

Laughing In The Face Of Death

Think of someone who has affected your life for good. Can you picture their face, and hear their voice? I wonder, what it was about them that impacted you so much...

Whilst you consider that, let me tell you about a 'sticky' moment, by which I mean a moment that will stick with me forever. 

The Visit

I was sitting in hospital with a friend called David a few weeks before he died. David radically altered the way I think about myself. And about life. You know that kind of guy? He was on the final leg of his journey of a cancer that eventually whisked him away from life far far far too early. He was taller and thinner than most people you meet, and his voice resonated with the sound of authority.

On handing him a bunch of white roses, I asked him the question. "David, how do you cope?" 

Just five words. But hiding in that question were other questions like 'Why is this happening? Are you going to die? Why haven't I made more of our time together? What do you think when your body is wasting away?'

One question in which lay every question.

He chuckled. I will always remember that chuckle. How one chuckle can reveal the immensity of the Man. Laughing in the face of death. Literally.

"I think about everything I'm thankful for." That's what he said. He hadn't practised it, he hadn't had a sneak peek at the back of the Book Of Life for the Right Answer. But 'Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks'.

It's not just you

In our mentoring work with young people - close to 200 individual young people in the last 7 months - the theme of coping comes up a lot.  E v e r y    s i n g l e    d a y   in fact. 

How to assist young people to cope with parents or losing their parents, one or both at the same time. How to cope with teachers, and help teachers cope with them. How to cope with puberty, and the turbocharged bodily changes they are going through. How to cope with self-harm, addictions to pornography, going through sex change, problems of bad diets.... Somewhere between the safe harbour of 'Facing It' and the distant land of 'Overcoming It' lies the em-ocean of 'How do I cope with it?'

Some days, coping with life can feel like a mammoth task. (You know... large, hairy and from another time).

Coping Strategies

Dr Chris Madden, a clinical psychologist, identifies eight specific categories of coping. Although he doesn't suggest 'Laughing in the face of death' as one of them, he does identify 'Being Philosophical' about things. Stepping out of the now and taking a longer term view. Mentally rising above your death bed and noticing things other than the hospital, the chemo treatment, the sheer bodily pain, the embarrassment. 

What else do you notice when you look away from your problem?

Some of the other coping categories are 'Acting out' and 'Addictions' - Dr.M highlighting that there are unhealthy ways of coping just as there are healthier ones.

Past, Present, Future?

David was an example of not looking at the past and moaning about why... or being overwhelmed by the demands of the present... but choosing to look to the future and consider 'What next?' And the only way to face whatever is coming next is to meet it head on with a heart full of gratitude.

Thank you David, thank you.

- If you would like to make a donation towards the work of Lifespace Trust with young people facing and overcoming disadvantage, then please visit www.lifespace.org.uk and click on the lovely red VirginMoneyGiving logo in the bottom left corner. If you do, then thank you.

- Thank you to David's wife Meryl for permission to publish this. A fabulous lady indeed.