Understanding how I use energy, where I expend energy the most, how I’m able to recharge, where I’m able to draw and ride energy, not tap into a low energy source, knowing why and where my energy usage might be inefficient.
As an introvert, I’m always working to try and reconcile the unseen parts of the external world with my internal reality. Trying to find patterns, reconciling inconsistencies, trying to identify the “real” reality. This is a very exhausting expenditure in a social gathering. The mental fatigue is from trying to maintain the “inner” reality in a social gathering, which is mainly an externalized activity – the external physical body interacting with the seeable external world.
Practicing extroversion, that is, not resisting the external physical body from interacting with the seeable external world – not trying to maintain an internal world reality when in an external social setting. It’s like trying to maintain two conversations at once.
The reasons why we try to stay in one world over the other. First, one is more comfortable, easier to get into, and provided the most reward and validation. It is also a defense mechanism, protective realm, essentially one world has proven to be more “right” or safer than the other. Listening too much to the internal voice, can tend to lead to very critical thoughts, so we might avoid the inner reality and use the physical world to distract or occupy ourselves from thinking too much. Or maybe as a child we tried to do sports but we got injured or weren’t very coordinated and led to unpleasant experiences, we might shy away from physical activity and feel safer in our internal world.
But one world is not more “real” than the other. We need both. As we get older, more mature, we can practice living in both, even though one might be easier or stronger than the other. Trying and practicing both, we’re exercising empathy, experiencing different perspectives, developing parts of our personality, mindset and thought process.