Feeling is First

[Synarch]

For some this might be really easy, but it literally brought me to my knees, which has not happened in my adult life thus far, so I am very intent on correcting this deficiency in my ability to allow my feelings to help me find the way I must choose to live my life.

Best of luck to you.

-Alex

I think there are always triggers that bring you to your knees. You have to hit your wall. I definitely relate to your experience. For me it was my father's accident and the following breakup of my then relationship.

It was only then that I realized that I had been coasting along for several years really sleep walking and not feeling anything. Just numbed because I was disappointed with my life in some way. Disappointed with myself. Not knowing what I wanted.

Wanting something is harder than I expected. When your light dies down it can be hard to make it burn bright again.

But, I think I am moving in the right direction. I have also been going to therapy and dealing with things I was just trying to ignore and keep at bay. It has been interesting and difficult and rewarding to try to get to know myself this way and to try to dig in and put some work in.

 

[Synarch]

Synarch - glad you wrote. I've been thinking about this recently. Partly spurred by having met a couple ENTPs who had real trouble acknowledging and processing their feelings. One of them actually claimed to feel numb for a long period (potentially years) after an emotional event occurred. I could see a real fear of emotions in the person. I've never seen anything like it before.

Emotions = lack of control. I am very concerned with control. I went for a massage a while back and had the hardest time just laying there on my stomach and letting someone I didn't know touch me. It was very interesting.

On the other hand, my own journey with MBTI has been interesting because I don't identify with very strong feelers or thinkers. I chose ENfP because in interpersonal relationships, I feel like Fi dictates decision making more of the time. In other areas, I can use detachment enough to let Te do the leading. So, I feel more inclined towards the feelers but am really an ENXP myself. I noticed you have been questioning or working through your own type recently. Care to share the thought process?

For me it's just more about not feeling like any category really captures the way I feel. Also, I am in a state of transition, I suppose.

Feelers and thinkers are both quite lovely. I wish we had more courage on both sides, to put our feelings aside for feelers when the situation demands it and to acknowledge them more for the thinkers. In my own experience as well, the introverted feelers seem much more in touch with their emotions. The INTJs I know, in particular, did the work much earlier to develop this side. I wonder why.

Agreed.

 

[Synarch]

Even in this respect, I've known more than a few INTJs who see feeling as a form of weakness. In themselves, and others.

It may be that I just admire my one INTJ friend a bit too much.

 

[Misty_Mountain_Rose]

It may be that I just admire my one INTJ friend a bit too much.

Pfffff. What's not to love about INTJs?!

 

[Nadir]

Not that I have any belief in MBTI left, but according to the theory, that original post is a whole load of Feeling, you know.

Casual acceptance of a dichotomy just because a non-falsifiable system dictates it.
Flowery rhetoric.
Absolutely lovely and just as nonfunctional metaphors.
Language steeped in almost sub-conscious subjectivity.

Mmhm. I'll use this to make my point:

A life without feeling is as cold and empty as death.

This is, for example, absolutely incorrect if you think about it. If our world had been devoid of emotions, we wouldn't miss them. I'm not saying because I don't appreciate them (I definitely do), but simply because one can't miss what one has no idea of and doesn't possess. What would be your reaction if I told you that there were absolutely no lalawhams in the world? You'd ask me what they were, but I wouldn't be able to describe them because they simply don't exist and you wouldn't be able to relate to them. In a world with no emotions, therefore, we would give the same reaction. There's no point in romanticizing such an absence. The reality is that we would be entirely capable of living and we wouldn't need to characterize ourselves as an "abortion" or "cold as death."

Hmm, I like this. Here's another:

The sacrifice required in loving.

Really? What sacrifice are you talking about? Loving is an absolute wonder shower for our nervous system, you know. Loving is feeling, yes, and it's also very, very logical. The "sacrifice" part is usually more a sociological and economical reality than a psychological impetus. The societal construction of a monogamous relationship might require such rituals, but where loving is concerned, there's no such requirement.

Also, I'd say that that such ways of living as "losing oneself in the emotions", or "thinking, leading with your heart" are not particularly impressive and often end up destructive. The problem is in the imagined dichotomy, that logic and feeling must be opposed to each other in some way. I repeat, there's no such opposition. Humans are able to feel the way they do because they think and as such are aware of what they are going through, and are spurred to greater, higher realms of thought and reasoning because heightened curiosity compels them, a function of emotion. And it all has an organic basis, namely our complex, and still not entirely understood nervous system.

There's no need to thank "those who lead with feeling" or "those who prefer to think" for this, in fact this is an unhealthy approach. You're basically blocking your way to self-development and actualization by going through these motions, by creating imagined borderlines in the name of supposed self-growth. Understand your complexity as a human being, apply reason to your emotions and vice versa, try to know why you feel the way you do and why you think the way you think and you'll quickly surpass whatever it is that MBTI can offer you. The only reason why MBTI exists is that science has not completed its work on the organic basis of personality and the nervous system's functioning yet.