[INFJ] INFJ Internal Struggles

[penelope]

This has been driving me crazy lately. I actually got into MBTI to try to understand why I struggle so much internally, finding that the J is responsible for so much of it.

I was writing in my journal last night over something that has been causing me to lose sleep for the past two weeks, and I quoted this:

INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.

I find that to be incredibly true of me. I find that I'm constantly anxious, stressed, or losing sleep over struggling to answer the self-imposed questions I leave myself, trying to better understand my actions, feelings, and motives.

It's been tormenting me so much lately, especially since I can't pinpoint the reason for my latest internal struggle. It makes me wish I weren't an introvert, so I wouldn't feel so at home in my head and the rubix cube I feel so impelled to solve. It makes me wish I weren't a feeler, so I wouldn't be so strongly affected and tormented by my emotions. It makes me wish I were more of a perceiver instead of a judger so I could let things go. But I would never give up the strength of my intuition. Without it, I think I would be perpetually lost.

Not sure what I'm trying to get across. Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

 

[WieldingTheSword]

I'm an ENFJ who has taken on a bit of an I personality occasionally (though still predominantly and positively ENFJ), and I have this struggle very often. There is a constant desire to know if I did something, why I did something, how I did something, and if I'll do it again in the future. I am pretty relentless in my desire for self-discovery, though I don't experience severe depression over it.

Tossing aside your I would only help you so much; I think ENF's experience this too. NP's do, as well. I think it's bound to happen as long as you are an N, which is the thing you value.

 

[StoryOfMyLife]

If a day went by that I didn't worry about one thing or another, I'd think I was sick. I have the same problem. I don't live up to what I could potentially be, but I have NO IDEA what that potential actually is. I have a difficult time pinpointing down the reasons behind my anxieties, and when I finally do, something new has already surfaced. There is very little time between one worry and another. However, I have found that sitting back and closing my eyes, trying to restructure everything to make sense sometimes will work. In other words, using that 'J' can come in handy...organizing and making connections, one thing leading to another- sometimes it will help put things in a clearer perspective and some of the anxiety will fade away.

 

[Sniffles]

Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

Yes I suffer from this all the time. Just remember that nobody is perfect, and everybody has personal struggles and anxieties of some sort. Anybody who claims otherwise is full of shit.

There are several ways of dealing with it. First, get rid of the notion of trying to make these things "easier". To do so is to cheat yourself out of life. Life at its heart is a struggle, and in this case a struggle with yourself. Out of this struggle comes greater understanding of oneself and even self-acceptance.

As another INFJ, Abraham J. Heschel summarised:

"The most valuable insights into the human situation have been gained not through patient introspection or systematic scrunity, but rather through suprise and shock of dramatic failures. Indeed, it is usually in the wake of frustration, in moments of crisis and self-disillusionment, and rarely out of astonishment at man's glorious achievements, that radical reflections comes to pass."
--Who is Man?, pg.14

A wonderful book I'd highly recommend.

A more comical way of putting it: Embrace your personality flaws, for without it you would have no personality.

 

[penelope]

Yes I suffer from this all the time. Just remember that nobody is perfect, and everybody has personal struggles and anxieties of some sort. Anybody who claims otherwise is full of shit.

There are several ways of dealing with it. First, get rid of the notion of trying to make these things "easier". To do so is to cheat yourself out of life. Life at its heart is a struggle, and in this case a struggle with yourself. Out of this struggle comes greater understanding of oneself and even self-acceptance.

As another INFJ, Abraham J. Heschel summarised:


A wonderful book I'd highly recommend.

A more comical way of putting it: Embrace your personality flaws, for without it you would have no personality.

That's an excellent quote... I'll have to look into that.

On a similarly related note, INFJs: raise your hand if you have Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Panic Disorder.

*raises hand*

 

[Tiltyred]

*raises hand*
The key to that is medication...

 

[violaine]

This has been driving me crazy lately. I actually got into MBTI to try to understand why I struggle so much internally, finding that the J is responsible for so much of it.

I was writing in my journal last night over something that has been causing me to lose sleep for the past two weeks, and I quoted this:



I find that to be incredibly true of me. I find that I'm constantly anxious, stressed, or losing sleep over struggling to answer the self-imposed questions I leave myself, trying to better understand my actions, feelings, and motives.

It's been tormenting me so much lately, especially since I can't pinpoint the reason for my latest internal struggle. It makes me wish I weren't an introvert, so I wouldn't feel so at home in my head and the rubix cube I feel so impelled to solve. It makes me wish I weren't a feeler, so I wouldn't be so strongly affected and tormented by my emotions. It makes me wish I were more of a perceiver instead of a judger so I could let things go. But I would never give up the strength of my intuition. Without it, I think I would be perpetually lost.

Not sure what I'm trying to get across. Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

This is an awful state of feeling. ime, it robs you of so much joy.

Practical things that have helped me:

- Reading and applying tips for growth from the Enneagram. Really helped me to grow out of having anxieties and perfectionism (which is terribly hard to let go of).

- Going traveling. It forced me out of my comfort zone, out of routine, engaged me, challenged me. I feel like I was 'underdone' as a person before I went traveling and completely different after. Traveling on my own was particularly transforming.

- Engaging in physical activity. Challenging physical exercise, (e.g. running). Draining myself of all of that nervous energy that INFJ can sometimes crackle with.

- Not necessary but to a lesser degree finding fulfilling, creative work has been wonderful too.

For me it's about ways to get out of my head so I can stop over-analyzing - pushing everything through the sieve of how I feel about it. Being balanced. As enjoyable as it is to retreat into my head (because it's a stronghold), there is a huge price to pay for it. I wanted to live instead of always thinking about or preparing for living. (<--- bleh I got so sick of that!)

The wonderful thing about INFJ is 'we' are often so hell bent on self-improvement that many often naturally find the best way for them... (as long as a person doesn't fall into the trap of having to endlessly improve self before they could be happy with themselves.)

 

[garbage]

I suffer from this as an ENTJ.. most of this thread resonates with me, as does that snippet from the INFJ profile. Guess it's a product of the Enneagram 1 and the ENTJ need to always be productive.

I'm always striving to improve myself, usually in connection with a thought process like this. I'm getting better about it, but my anxiety and need to be perfect has been my downfall in many instances.

David D. Burns' Ten Days to Self-Esteem has a chapter on perfectionism which I've found very useful. The book overall helps you characterize and view your own thought processes, which is good for a greater understanding of yourself on the whole.

 

[cascadeco]

This has been driving me crazy lately. I actually got into MBTI to try to understand why I struggle so much internally, finding that the J is responsible for so much of it.

I was writing in my journal last night over something that has been causing me to lose sleep for the past two weeks, and I quoted this:

I find that to be incredibly true of me. I find that I'm constantly anxious, stressed, or losing sleep over struggling to answer the self-imposed questions I leave myself, trying to better understand my actions, feelings, and motives.

It's been tormenting me so much lately, especially since I can't pinpoint the reason for my latest internal struggle. It makes me wish I weren't an introvert, so I wouldn't feel so at home in my head and the rubix cube I feel so impelled to solve. It makes me wish I weren't a feeler, so I wouldn't be so strongly affected and tormented by my emotions. It makes me wish I were more of a perceiver instead of a judger so I could let things go. But I would never give up the strength of my intuition. Without it, I think I would be perpetually lost.

Not sure what I'm trying to get across. Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

I can definitely relate to this, but the 'problem' is something that only flares up every now and then now - thank god. ;-)

But when you write, 'I would never give up the strength of my intuition', I'm not sure I know what you mean, as I have spent so much of my life internally, just thinking and analyzing and contemplating things, that to be honest I'm kind of sick of it. I think it holds me back from a lot of other joys in life, which is why I'm all about Se-activities now (or, as much as as INxx CAN be ;-)), and really focusing on external, tangible things, rather than 'nurturing' my internal world -- because frankly I'm not sure my internal world really needs nurturing anymore...For at least 15-20 yrs of my life I was predominantly in an internal world. I'm afraid it's gotten a bit stale, but maybe I'm the only INFJ who says that?

I have stopped thinking *as much* about stuff I used to dwell on. Maybe I'm not quite as hard on myself as I used to be. And maybe I forgive myself a bit more easily now - a big factor in this might be that I no longer automatically think something's wrong with me. That reduces anxiety considerably. [not saying I still don't get into big analytical loops, and beat myself up, but again, somehow, for some reason, I've just been able to let go a bit more recently -- I think it's a 'life is short' mentality, maybe -- there's just too much out there that I don't want to miss because I spent my whole life just being by myself, thinking by myself.]

 

[Tallulah]

I'm a P, and a Thinker, and that quote could have been written about me. I've also had both panic attacks and depression due to perfectionism, and the drive to constantly improve. I think I'm getting better about being easier on myself, and I'm also becoming more acclimated to the idea of allowing myself to take the risk of epic failure, and also to accept the idea of incremental attempts at competence, rather than whole-hog going for perfectionism and mastery.

I think it's ultimately the need to tame and temper a drive that is ultimately helpful, but destructive when unchecked. I have to take myself out of it, too. I have to stop judging myself as deficient if I'm not constantly improving, etc.

 

[mwv6r]

No generalized panic disorder, but I have struggled with anxiety-induced insomnia most of my life. After reading some INFJ profile descriptions I'm starting to think our anxiety comes with the territory -- we feel compelled to shoulder too many of the world's problems, and we feel guilty about the ones we don't shoulder. And I hate that nagging urge to always be accomplishing something / improving myself -- is that an xNxJ thing? I've been trying to learn to relax more, and am getting a little better at it, although even on vacation I sometimes have to force myself not to make to-do lists. My partner and I are thinking of having kids in a few years and honestly I've been toying with the idea of being a stay-at-home mom or only working part-time when/if that happens. I really want to slow down the pace of my life and enjoy the little things more.

 

[Sniffles]

After reading some INFJ profile descriptions I'm starting to think our anxiety comes with the territory -- we feel compelled to shoulder too many of the world's problems, and we feel guilty about the ones we don't shoulder.

That's probably one reason why we're often compared to the Biblical prophets, who after all had to shoulder the burdens of the entire Israelite nation.

I think even in Kaballah there's a concept that some people are destined to bear the burderns of others, in order to help purify and strengthen the world.

 

[quietmusician]

I find that to be incredibly true of me. I find that I'm constantly anxious, stressed, or losing sleep over struggling to answer the self-imposed questions I leave myself, trying to better understand my actions, feelings, and motives.

It's been tormenting me so much lately, especially since I can't pinpoint the reason for my latest internal struggle. It makes me wish I weren't an introvert, so I wouldn't feel so at home in my head and the rubix cube I feel so impelled to solve. It makes me wish I weren't a feeler, so I wouldn't be so strongly affected and tormented by my emotions. It makes me wish I were more of a perceiver instead of a judger so I could let things go. But I would never give up the strength of my intuition. Without it, I think I would be perpetually lost.

Not sure what I'm trying to get across. Do other INFJs suffer so much as well? Have you learned any tricks to make it easier?

I often experience this too, more than I'd like to admit. I'm always looking for something to complete the puzzle, but I usually end up going in circles. And I understand your frustration. I never find peace with anything and I never let anything go. I do try to knock myself off my handmade pedestal I've created from time to time. And yet things never seem to be getting any easier. Like you, I am always trying to improve something, something that may seem so far away. So I don't know if I have any tricks, but I do tend to feign apathy really well. I know it's probably not the healthiest thing to do, but for me it works.

 

[LindseyLadybug]

That's probably one reason why we're often compared to the Biblical prophets, who after all had to shoulder the burdens of the entire Israelite nation.

I think even in Kaballah there's a concept that some people are destined to bear the burderns of others, in order to help purify and strengthen the world.

That's fascinating...Specific Biblical prophets or all of them?

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I have a lifetime struggle with anxiety and some depression. I have to be mindful to not overdo, but it doesn't feel like perfectionism to me, it just feels like it takes every effort to be adequate in those cases. My internal struggles are rooted in doubting myself. There is something related to ego that i see other people have that is vacant in me. This has some significant drawbacks (not sure it is related to type or not). I mean ego as a kind of sense of self, of being certain of one's own perspective as well as a healthy attitude of assuming oneself to be a little more significant than is objectively true. I am too ready to contemplate the big picture to the point of getting lost in the vastness of it. When trying to understand something, I view it from so many vantage points that it leaves everything really open-ended and uncertain. It feels a little like wandering too far outside myself.

For example, I had someone I have loved dearly my entire life accuse me of being all kinds of horrible things. Even though I know they were distressed and confused, I still have to examine that vantage point to understand the process by which I can be viewed in such a horrible light. Am I exactly those horrible things? Am I a little bit like that? Am I the opposite? What produces those conclusions. It can really hurt to try to understand it, but there is something more important than the effect it has on me. Everything is valid if understood and viewed from the appropriate angle, although that way of thinking can make emotional interactions rather painful at times. I don't mean it is objectively true, but the result of some process of cause and effect that defines someone's experience. I can't dismiss anything entirely. That is that absence of ego/self investment I am talking about. I don't have good internal filters like many people, and so I tend to be rather withdrawn externally to minimize what I take in. I suppose the advantage is that holding so much inside allows me to make more connections that might be important at a later point than the person who solidly dismisses whatever disagrees with their personal vantage point on a regular basis.

 

[Sniffles]

That's fascinating...Specific Biblical prophets or all of them?

I can't say exactly all of them literally, but rather the general profile attributed to them.

Here's an example from one piece I posted here, R. Loren Sandford's "Profile of the Prophetic Person":

Rarely happy - Burden-bearing

Prophetic people are rarely "happy" people, at least until they have served long and made peace with the pain, with the gift and with God. First, remember that the training for a prophetic person involves depths of crushing and breaking incomprehensible to the average person. This training period and the heaviness of spirit that may accompany it can last for many years, but the heaviness need not be permanent. Seasoned prophetic people who have persevered over time in seeking the presence and the heart of God and who have allowed the character changes to occur that were the purpose of the suffering, come at last into a deep and abiding peace and joy that are not easily shaken. One source of the dark moodiness that so plagues some prophetic types, therefore, is the pressure of the constant seasons of crucifixion required to produce the character adjustments that are so essential to the calling.


The burden-bearing function I have mentioned so often is one of the most difficult aspects of prophetic awareness to sort out and balance. The emotional weight of the faithlessness and unrighteousness of the people of Israel so crushed Moses that he pled with God to kill him (Numbers 11:15). Jeremiah bore the burden of Israel's sin and the destruction that was to come so deeply that scholars have dubbed him "the weeping prophet".

 

[simpleamazement]

I can relate what you guys are saying as far as worrying about improving all the time, having a rich inner life, trying to figure out the whats and whys of every thought and action, etc.

I suggest some sort of meditation. Breathing. Listening to some soothing sounds...doesn't have to be music. Could be waterfalls, birds...whatever. When you're in a super relaxed state, you are NOT thinking. And when you are not thinking, your worries seem to disappear. At least for me.

 

[karenk]

On a similarly related note, INFJs: raise your hand if you have Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Panic Disorder.

*raises hand*

Yes, general anxiety/prone to insomnia. I won't take medication though because I'm a health nut. Also, I worry it would affect optimal brain functioning in ways other than simply calming the mind. Yea, just more worries. ha.

 

[Ardea]

INFJs and those pained-looking eyes...

I kinda connected to one, and for a few days... I could feel my heart carrying a heavy weight. It felt like a heavy backpack, but a cardiac one.

How do you deal with it? I mean, I have enough trouble with carrying my own emotions around, and you guys carry everyone else's AND your weird/contradictory ones... whoa.

 

[iwakar]

My internal state of affairs resembles a mythical creature attempting to manipulate a tornado wrestling match into a symphony of discordant elements; its complicated, but it's managed for long stretches of time until something erupts out of a stressed seam.



Metaphors FTW.