How do you experience Fi? Am I doing it right? For Fi users.

[Istbkleta]

I am trying to develop my emotional awareness. I need to know if the experience I have is indeed what they call Fi or my mind if fooling me into believing it.

I "allow" myself to feel feelings by not denying them. This is the hard part.

After that though it feel too much like Ti. I start following the trail of feelings. Example:

I talked to Bill and he made me angry. What did he say that made me angry? OK, that I did not produce the results I needed to. I feel anger when I think about this exactly. Why? I am afraid. (I feel it) Why? Because ... and so on.

I can't say I have reached the "end" of any such wormhole. Nevertheless this feels exactly like Ti, just sensing the feelings, trusting them to be real is new. I don't trust that my feelings are telling me the real story, cause there must be a reason why Bill would make me feel anything, cause usually that's not the case thus it is obviously not Bill my feeling is all about. That's why I follow them.

But from my observations I doubt this is really what Fi is.

Can anybody correct the process I described or attempt to describe what Fi really feels like from the inside?

What is worrying me is that i tend to think about the reasons why I have such feelings, where the feelings stem from, etc. That doesn't match with what I have observed in Fi users.

I am very worried I am not understanding what Fi is.

 

[FunnyDigestion]

Hmm... introverted feeling is concerned with value-- not necessarily in the moral sense but just good vs. bad, positive vs. negative... obviously there are no absolutes in this so always there is the awareness of existing on a spectrum... but as for the example you gave, I think an Fi user would either not bother asking those questions (at least not like discrete steps in a process of understanding) or as they're asking them they would simultaneously look at the worth of each question & then the worth of each answer, which would eventually create a compulsion to 'break off' the analysis & stop asking further questions, because you would feel like you'd finally holistically understood the situation / issue...

For example with the initial anger to begin with there would be an immediate sense of it as being rational or irrational, good or bad, petty or worthwhile, etc-- just whether it made sense. Sometimes that might be the end of it-- after all, if the anger feels very righteous & deserved, you feel no big need to investigate it, while in the converse if it felt totally petty & stupid (on your part) you'd just want to ignore it & therefore ALSO not investigate it.

But say you want to examine it further & you ask "What did he say that made me angry?", you'd have an attachment of value to that question-- you'd attach a degree of importance to answering it, i.e. whether the answer is necessary or only peripheral to your feeling, whether it could be something that potentially changes your anger or reduces it or only supports it further. Then the answer-- though a lot of times you feel the answers to these questions immediately, & would only go thru this examination process to lay out the details or explain it to yourself-- the answer (to "what made me angry?") would also generate a set of 'value concerns': if the thing the person said that made you angry is something they'd normally say, you'd attach some feeling of 'frivolous inevitability' to it, which would generalize the anger & make it less sharp / acute. Like, "that's just something [so-&-so] tends to say. What can I do about it?" However if the reason for your anger stood out as exceptional, the anger would feel more valuable, & you might want to build it up or investigate it further. etc.

This weighing-value process is the reason you rarely see INFPs or ISFPs who like bickering or arguing about pointless stuff-- or even big stuff, the intellectual-debate type of stuff you find on forums all the time-- because it feels frivolous & an unworthwhile thing to be doing.

 

[Istbkleta]

Thank you.

The way you describe it, I believe I might be onto the right track. The idea behind emotional awareness is to know what things mean to me - what feelings do they evoke.

The logical process I explained never questions the feeling or anything - just the association of that feeling with a particular event I night be tempted to just accept as the cause. I believe my logic is based on a feeling but I am using different words to explain it.

Of course I might be terribly wrong
Which is often the case with Ti

 

[FunnyDigestion]

I don't think you're wrong-- maybe you just feel like you need to have it exactly right. When so much of psychology is about guesswork. I personally dont think Fi & Ti are as different as people believe.

 

[InvisibleJim]

I am very worried I am not understanding what Fi is.

You are right.

Not only do you not understand what Fi is but you don't understand what a rational vs irrational function is.

 

[violet_crown]

I am trying to develop my emotional awareness. I need to know if the experience I have is indeed what they call Fi or my mind if fooling me into believing it.

Fe permits emotional awareness as well. Why not just develop the feeling preference that comes to you more naturally. Not that I don't understand the impulse to become more like an ENTJ.

What is worrying me is that i tend to think about the reasons why I have such feelings, where the feelings stem from, etc. That doesn't match with what I have observed in Fi users.

Why does that bother you?

 

[Istbkleta]

You are right.

Not only do you not understand what Fi is but you don't understand what a rational vs irrational function is.

Can you pls provide any link or source I might use for that?

Fe permits emotional awareness as well. Why not just develop the feeling preference that comes to you more naturally. Not that I don't understand the impulse to become more like an ENTJ.

Why does that bother you?

1. I need emotional awareness of myself, not only other people. It is not ENTJ but more F. More INFP / ENFJ.

2. Because that is not what I have observed in Fi users and as I said the end goal is to be able to emulate the mental process that Fi users apply.

I don't think you're wrong-- maybe you just feel like you need to have it exactly right. When so much of psychology is about guesswork. I personally dont think Fi & Ti are as different as people believe.

Thank you for the inspiring words. I am certain it is possible to do in some way.

 

[violet_crown]

Fair enough.

From what you've said here it sounds like you've got the right idea, but you think too much about it and rather than simply experiencing Fi you're having the experience of Fi as scrutinized by Ti. Fi is all about that initial, instinctual response to something. It's hard to explain because it is so utterly subjective. This is how this experience made me feel. It's not an endless wormhole because people only have so many subjective experiences that any new experience can relate to, and even fewer that are significant enough to become touchstones of your emotional life.

So going back to the example in your initial post:

After that though it feel too much like Ti. I start following the trail of feelings. Example:

I talked to Bill and he made me angry. What did he say that made me angry? OK, that I did not produce the results I needed to. I feel anger when I think about this exactly. Why? I am afraid. (I feel it) Why? Because ... and so on.

If I were hypothetically walking this back with Fi it would go something like this:
1) Bill made me angry
2) I was pissed off because I was afraid because something in his actions towards me intimidated me.
3) Being helpless frightens me, and its easier for me to be angry than afraid.

You could connect these to some previous experience that you had personally or with Bill, make some assumption about why Bill felt the need to intimidate you, or some wider theory about why anger is preferable to fear. But at that point you're no longer dealing in the specifics of your own experience, so its no longer strictly Fi.

In any case, tl;dr--if you don't get Fi its because you're thinking to hard about it.

Another resource on the subject.

 

[Lady_X]

might have been a typo but enfjs aren't fi users..

anyway...everyone has their own sorts of values which determine how they filter information but rather than always thinking it through it's felt more like an immediate gut reaction...a knowing rather it was right or wrong based on an automatic value check. is it genuine? what's the intention? are they behaving in a way that i approve of or disprove of? like everything you know of a person and what this action means coming from them.

you seem to be analyzing the feelings as something separate from you when ours are what define us....i don't have to think it through because i know who i am and what i stand for....not to say that everything is black and white tho...because i take into consideration other peoples unique self and rather or not their behavior meant what it would mean coming from me...it often doesn't...so that's important to respect as well...and i will so long as they're respecting my views.

 

[skylights]

hmm.

i guess for me (enfp) it is like...

bill made me feel angry. instead of, "what did he say that made me angry?", i tend to think, when in the conversation did i start to heat up and get defensive? in what way was bill affronting the way things should be?

well, maybe bill called me a small-minded asshat, which it's fine if he thinks i'm an asshat, because sometimes i am, but calling me small-minded is unacceptable because that is definitely not who i am. it implies that i cannot perform deep or lateral thinking, which i am engaged in all the time. and then he went on to say that small children should be spanked. i firmly do not believe in the efficacy of corporal punishment, i think it's harmful, so that statement makes me upset on a certain level.

more advanced Fi can start looking "inside" the other person too, like lady x is getting at. such as - bill is usually pretty even-keeled, but he's been particularly aggressive today. it seems that is looking to pick a fight; i wonder why he is feeling like that. what is it that he is missing, to make him feel happy and safe? i know he just moved here and is having a hard time fitting in culturally, so maybe he is channeling some of that frustration right now. maybe he had a recent bad interaction with someone else and is still on edge.

anyway, there's also this interesting element of it, that's like feeling a "burning" sensation - it's a full body heat - like a call to action. that's what Fi is for me. it's like a burning fire inside. you don't just cognate it, you feel it. it pushes you to a certain limit where you have to speak up against whatever's going on to make things right again.

 

[Thalassa]

I tend to think "Bill made me angry because he's WRONG (or he's a prick, et al)."

I tend to already know exactly *why* I'm angry. I don't have to ponder it. It's visceral, almost, but not only visceral, because I'm so aware of what my values are that only a BIG VALUE can make me angry. If it's something minor I'm not going to get angry. But anything that feels like a ridiculous personal attack (like I hate when people accuse me of doing something I didn't do, or say that I'm something that I'm not, especially if what they're accusing me of goes against my core values) or it goes against something I see as WRONGITY WRONG, that's why I'm angry.

I already know.

But what I think about later is WHY Bill said what he did. When I calm down, I seek answers to what Bill's side of the story is, and may contemplate that over a period of minutes, hours, days, or weeks (depending on how much Bill means to me and what exactly transpired).

I already know how I feel and why I feel it. My rational process comes later in questioning the motives and positions of other people in the grand scheme of things, and how this all applies to reality.

 

[Elfboy]

I tend to think "Bill made me angry because he's WRONG (or he's a prick, et al)."

I tend to already know exactly *why* I'm angry. I don't have to ponder it. It's visceral, almost, but not only visceral, because I'm so aware of what my values are that only a BIG VALUE can make me angry. If it's something minor I'm not going to get angry. But anything that feels like a ridiculous personal attack (like I hate when people accuse me of doing something I didn't do, or say that I'm something that I'm not, especially if what they're accusing me of goes against my core values) or it goes against something I see as WRONGITY WRONG, that's why I'm angry.

I already know.

But what I think about later is WHY Bill said what he did. When I calm down, I seek answers to what Bill's side of the story is, and may contemplate that over a period of minutes, hours, days, or weeks (depending on how much Bill means to me and what exactly transpired).

I already know how I feel and why I feel it. My rational process comes later in questioning the motives and positions of other people in the grand scheme of things, and how this all applies to reality.

I second this post

 

[Asterion]

For Fi doms, do you take time to hammer out your values before you know what they are? Or are you like Marm + other Fi secondaries and just know it?

 

[Istbkleta]

For Fi doms, do you take time to hammer out your values before you know what they are? Or are you like Marm + other Fi secondaries and just know it?

I second this question. There might be a difference similar to the ENTP vs. INTP difference.

Any IxFP around?

 

[Seymour]

For Fi doms, do you take time to hammer out your values before you know what they are? Or are you like Marm + other Fi secondaries and just know it?

I don't know that I spend time consciously working out values the way a philosopher might... it's more like I'm continually trying to optimize my actions to be in line with what's important. Over time, those alignments kind of aggregate into values. When things are in conflict or out of harmony, it can be almost physically painful. This means that one tends to devote some intellectual and emotional resources to resolving (or more avoidantly escaping) those conflicts. Sometimes a big conflict may require some real struggle to clarify what's more important, or how to resolve a situation with no good resolutions.

Fi doms also tend to pay attention to the small stuff, since being conflicted even in small ways shows up on one's emotional barometer. However, we can also be somewhat future blind, where we optimize for the present, not seeing that we are leading ourselves down the primrose path towards disaster.

In any case, the state that we seem to each for (and never achieve) is one in which one's actions are in line with one's values, and those values harmonize with each other. Ideally that state resonates all the way to one's core, and that leaves one's emotional vision clear to truly see and experience one's own truth and the truth of those around oneself.

In real life that's never possible, and we learn to live with extended periods of conflict and (at least partially) compromised values.