Make Sure You Know How to Reset Your Introvert Circuit Breaker

Part of being an introvert is knowing when your internal circuit breaker has tripped—and then knowing what to do to reset it.

It’s a well-known fact that appliances die in sets of three.

So we’ve been on death watch at our house for several months now.

First to go was the washer.

It still worked, technically speaking, when we replaced it with a new one several weeks ago. But for the better part of a year, whenever the washer had reached the spin cycle, it had made the mildly annoying sound of an F-16 firing up for takeoff.

At the very end, the spin cycle would last only a minute or two before stalling in “UL” (Unbalanced Load … or was it Ultra Loud?) mode.

We then had to rearrange the soggy laundry inside, restart the cycle, put in earplugs, and, inevitably, repeat the process several times to coax a load through to the finish.

When you’re starting to think that it might be better to beat your clothes clean on a rock by the river, it’s time to cave and get a new washer.

So we did.

The very same day that the new washer was installed—dazzling us and our sunken standards with the overly cheerful little ditty it plays when a load is done—our dishwasher stepped up and said, “My turn.”

By the sound of it, a large rock had lodged somewhere inside of it—not an impossibility given that our kids usually load the thing. We began having to shout in its presence.

It has apparently made a temporary comeback, though. Perhaps the rock has now eroded away entirely. Or a canyon has been carved into it in just the right spot.

Even so, we’re holding our breath, knowing it’s just a matter of time before the dishwasher, too, will have cleaned its last item and become casualty No. 2.

False Alarm, Revealing Truth

So with all of that as the back story … I was a little miffed—though hardly surprised—the other morning when, after hearing the new washer’s gleeful song, I went downstairs, loaded the laundry into the dryer, hit the power button, and got … nothing.

No lights, no sounds, no anything.

“Isaac [our oldest son] just used this thing last night!” I silently complained to myself as I stood there bewildered.

The power was still on to the singing washer, and to the rest of the laundry room. Still, I wondered after pushing buttons a few more times: Could it be as simple as …?

Yes.

Turns out the dryer has its own circuit on our circuit breaker, and the breaker had tripped.

All I had to do was reset the switch and shazam: all was well with the dryer once again.

Your Introvert Circuit Breaker

Is it possible that you and I and all the other introverts out there have circuit breakers too, internally—and that we need to trust them, and reset them after they’ve tripped?

I got to thinking about this idea after reading a moving Psychotherapy Networker article by psychologist Michael Alcée entitled “‘Nobody Knows!’ Helping Introverts Appreciate Their Strengths.”

In the piece, Alcée presents a poignant case study of a student named Jessica that he worked with for several years in his former role at a college counseling center.

Jessica struggled with low self-worth, which asserted itself in the form of near-constant anxiety, particularly in social contexts. As Jessica herself put it, according to Alcée:

“I’ve always thought I had some kind of defect, like a design flaw.”

Eventually, first Alcée and then Jessica and Alcée together figured out that Jessica was (and is) simply an introvert.

And slowly, Jessica began to see her anxiety not as something to beat herself up over, but, as Alcée puts it, “a messenger for her to take care of herself.”

A circuit breaker.

As Alcée writes:

“Jessica began to relate to her introversion like the battery on her phone. When it was running low, she wouldn’t berate or denigrate it; she’d just charge herself up with the right things—reading, reflecting, retreating. ‘My three R’s,’ she started to call it.”

How do you know when your own introvert circuit breaker is about to trip, or already has?

And what do you do, or what can you do, to reset it—so that you’ll be singing your own happy tune once again?