Curing Social Exhaustion

I spent last weekend in a house with eight other women, celebrating a friend’s wedding.

This kind of thing, in the past, would’ve left me drained, overwhelmed, and inevitably sick.

(I am an introvert’s introvert, and get easily overstimulated – to the point I used to beg my parents to let me skip my friends’ birthday parties. Very cool, I know.)

But not this time.

I soaked up the laughter, savored every interaction, and came home energized and with a full heart.

So what changed?

I’ve been actively practicing some skills I didn’t used to have:

• I’m only committing to activities that feel like a “hell yes” – not the obligatory stuff I used to do out of guilt.
• I’m checking in with myself often to see if I need to eat/drink water/take a break/have some alone time/move my body.
• If I do need any of those things, I excuse myself discreetly but unapologetically to go do those things.
• I quickly remove myself from interactions with people who drain me.
• I’m allowing myself to fully enjoy the light, silly, fun moments – instead of trying to tend to everyone’s pain.
• I’ve demoted myself from the self-appointed role of social facilitator. I trust everyone to take care of themselves and speak up if they need something.
  

Turns out, all these things actually WORK.

These are skills a lot of us didn’t learn, so we have to reverse engineer them in adulthood.

This skill gap is even more pronounced if you grew up around a lot of boundary violation, guilt, and emotional toxicity.

If you’re looking to build these skills and more, join the interest list here for my on-demand course, Recovering from a Narcissistic Relationship.