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Copyright Zan Z. Packard 2008

ZanPackard.com

(The Adventurous Introvert ™)

Zan Z. Packard, M.A.

The adventurous Introvert ™

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ABOUT ZAN

I’m an introvert…pure and simple. I love people, yet they exhaust me. I need huge amounts of alone time daily to recharge my energy so that I can keep functioning at high levels. I am also a writer but I haven’t always written. One day I realized that my greatest desire was to become a freelance writer, to get paid to do what I love, and yet at the same time I realized writing wasn’t a priority for me. How could I possibly become something unless I practiced it regularly?

I decided right then that I would begin to write everyday. Not knowing what to write about, it turned out, was the greatest excuse ever to avoid taking that first step…so I decided to write about nothing. I wrote in a purely free association style of journaling. I wrote first thing in the morning before the day began to take hold and divert my attention elsewhere. I just let it all hang out (on paper, of course).

I wrote 3 pages everyday…faithfully…without regard to what I wrote. It became very empowering. It seemed that I could dump my thoughts onto paper to clear my mind for more productive endeavors. Some may tell you to read your writings. To this day I never have. In fact, I’ve shredded most of them. I don’t need to read them because the actual process of writing—getting thoughts out of my head and onto paper—was what worked for me.

I discovered that no matter where I started, my thoughts would go to where I needed to go to get the inner work done. I’ve read a zillion books, I’ve got a masters in counseling, I taught public school for years…I’ve been successful at many levels, but I never came to terms with my introverted nature until I started writing daily.

Introverts can become quite wounded as children as they attempt to discover the world and how they fit into it. I was one of the wounded ones. As a child, I misinterpreted, misunderstood and internalized just about every piece of information that came my way. I grew up in a loving family who had no idea the torture I was living in…I didn’t either until I started the daily journaling process. I began to go deeper into my core issues and deal with them in my own way, at my own speed. Gradually I learned to understand and love my introvertedness…to embrace that nature which makes me so unique.

My journey is not magic, it is not isolated to just me….research shows that the journaling process supports many temperaments and challenges…your brain is the best friend you have when you can learn to channel it to your greater good. Journaling does that and more.

So, yes, I’m a writer. I write for fun, I write for money and mostly I write for life….