[MBTI General] How do you experience Feeling?

[garbage]

I was going to be selfish and just ask for opinions about Extraverted Feeling cheese, but I'd be interested in Introverted Feeling as well.

Extraverted Feeling is often boiled down to the desire to connect to others. It seems that this can manifest itself in ways such as picking out the perfect gift on someone's birthday, defining social roles and rules, customs and social norms, hosting and caretaking, community, sympathy for others, reading others to an astonishing degree, and remaining loyal to certain groups of people. Negatively, this can mean shirking one's own needs in order to fulfill those of others.

I include Fi because it's described as.. well.. "often hard to describe." Introverted Feeling has, however, been described as staying true to oneself, empathy, internal harmony, a subjective filter, and the desire to allow each individual his or her own unique point of view on various subjects.

So, how do you think this manifests in you? Which parts of the descriptions are spot-on, and which are bogus?

 

[Intricate Mystic]

I was going to be selfish and just ask for opinions about Extraverted Feeling cheese, but I'd be interested in Introverted Feeling as well.

Extraverted Feeling is often boiled down to the desire to connect to others. It seems that this can manifest itself in ways such as picking out the perfect gift on someone's birthday, defining social roles and rules, customs and social norms, hosting and caretaking, community, sympathy for others, reading others to an astonishing degree, and remaining loyal to certain groups of people.

I relate to all of the above except the hosting and caretaking part.

Negatively, this can mean shirking one's own needs in order to fulfill those of others.

I do this all of the time. I'm so focused on other people that I forget about myself as a person! I try to remember to step back and think about what I want to do, and what my goals and ambitions in life are, but I don't do this very often.

 

[Ruthie]

Don't know how much help I can be with this; still haven't nailed down the T/F part...

For me, I use a lot of humor and banter. I tease people a bit to make them comfortable and build a rapport. I play along when they joke back, and I'm not above a little fake laughter to put everyone at ease. I genuinely want to be liked.

I listen better than I appear to (I'm bad with eye contact and often lack immediate reactions) and usually remember what someone has told me about themselves. I can usually get a pretty good sense about a person pretty early on, which can be good and bad. On the upside, I can adjust my behavior to accommodate them, but on the downside, it can lead me to make snap judgments, and when I'm in a devilish mood, can lead me to act in a way I know will rub them the wrong way.

I can't really relate to the "taking on one's problems as your own" part of Fe. I often try to help friends solve problems, but I almost think it's more because I enjoy the challenge (I'm pretty good at problem-solving, and usually have good insights into people). Unless it's someone extremely close to me, I don't really lose sleep over the problem I help to solve.

I always kind of mentally divide Fe into "Hard Fe" and "Soft Fe." In my mind, "Hard Fe" can resemble Te in that it isn't always the warmest of emotions. Anger would be a good example of Hard Fe (picture the stereotypical strict nun in a Catholic school). Unlike Te though, Hard Fe doesn't require objectivity. You're allowed to take sides based on values. I always associate Soft Fe with warmth, empathy, nurturance, mercy... a lot of the "typical" Fe descriptions. I also think it's pretty typical for someone more inclined to use Hard Fe to build rapport through humor, while those who prefer Soft Fe might build rapport through more meaningful connections or personal disclosures (for an introvert, usually listening to personal disclosures rather than offering them). I'm not totally void of the Soft Fe emotions, but I think I lean a little more in the "tough love" direction.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I have both Fe and Fi, so my experience is a bit of a mix. Emotions fascinate me, and I tend to observe my own emotions along with observing other people's feelings. The tension emotions can create between perception and reality are intriguing. Since going on a generic BC pill, I've had more intense PMS. It's been my goal to conquer the mind-altering effects of this change in physiology and finally managed it. That something like hormonal changes can influence my sense of reality is quite trippy and something I am compelled to understand and get under reign. I succeeded by wearing a "PMS ring". Now if I start to feel an emotional effect I notice the ring and remind myself that it is to be expected. It puts me back into observation mode.

I've done these sorts of mind tricks for years. As a teenager I dealt with intensely negative emotions and had various coping mechanisms. One that worked well was to switch my focus from intense emotional pain to the movement of a spider on the floor, or to study the patterns in the wallpaper. It would calm my mind. Just realizing that my mind has the capacity to reinterpret a particular moment in time based on its own thought patterns really fascinated me. In a way I experience emotions by experimenting on myself. I know that sound twisted, but I really enjoy it.

I've always tended to feel things deeply, but also driven to understand the emotion and find a way to subject it to reasoning. My process is not perfect yet, but does have its moments where I can simultaneously feel, observe, and think rationally. I do often manage this duality where there are two separate streams of perception going on in which one is feeling and experiencing a situation and the other is observing and analyzing. I've done that for many years now, and it is my natural pattern. It gives me a great deal of toughness and emotional tenacity.

 

[Skyward]

I'm similar to Toonia with having both Fe and Fi, though my Fi is subtle. For me, Fe is definitely a connection function; I use it to try and understand where someone is coming from to give advice to them. Another way it seems to work is sort of like 'emotional deals' that one reads and remembers.

Say one person always comes to work antisocial, they 'take' emotional dollars or just doesn't spend any. If one day they come to work all smiles and upbeat you wonder what changed them, even if some people don't or haven't realized it yet. People with Fe have a more acute feel for 'emotional dollar transactions' and know where people will 'spend' more money (such as their interests and things you know they like). These people also tend to be less miserly with their dollars. That's how I describe it anyway.

With me, I tend to use Fe as a tool to gently nudge (Or punch) people in different directions; to either help them improve (Or to get them out of my face). I'm only decent at passive-aggression.

Fi for me is mostly just a way to monitor my internal workings. A maintenance man for emotions and stress.

 

[TaylorS]

Don't know how much help I can be with this; still haven't nailed down the T/F part...

For me, I use a lot of humor and banter. I tease people a bit to make them comfortable and build a rapport. I play along when they joke back, and I'm not above a little fake laughter to put everyone at ease. I genuinely want to be liked.

I listen better than I appear to (I'm bad with eye contact and often lack immediate reactions) and usually remember what someone has told me about themselves. I can usually get a pretty good sense about a person pretty early on, which can be good and bad. On the upside, I can adjust my behavior to accommodate them, but on the downside, it can lead me to make snap judgments, and when I'm in a devilish mood, can lead me to act in a way I know will rub them the wrong way.

I can't really relate to the "taking on one's problems as your own" part of Fe. I often try to help friends solve problems, but I almost think it's more because I enjoy the challenge (I'm pretty good at problem-solving, and usually have good insights into people). Unless it's someone extremely close to me, I don't really lose sleep over the problem I help to solve.

I always kind of mentally divide Fe into "Hard Fe" and "Soft Fe." In my mind, "Hard Fe" can resemble Te in that it isn't always the warmest of emotions. Anger would be a good example of Hard Fe (picture the stereotypical strict nun in a Catholic school). Unlike Te though, Hard Fe doesn't require objectivity. You're allowed to take sides based on values. I always associate Soft Fe with warmth, empathy, nurturance, mercy... a lot of the "typical" Fe descriptions. I also think it's pretty typical for someone more inclined to use Hard Fe to build rapport through humor, while those who prefer Soft Fe might build rapport through more meaningful connections or personal disclosures (for an introvert, usually listening to personal disclosures rather than offering them). I'm not totally void of the Soft Fe emotions, but I think I lean a little more in the "tough love" direction.

I am in total agreement with you except for the bolded part. I can "take on other's problems as if they were my own" so much it is bad for my mental health. And if someone I'm close to is a victim of some horrible act or event (say, a sexual assault) people that blame the victim or make jokes involving the event or act with get a good Fe-style moralistic chew-out.

 

[Halla74]

All I can tell you is that I'm kind of a Feel-O-Tard. I can think on the fly like there is no tomorrow, and am willing to act on my thoughts with great ease and contentment. When it comes to feelings, I can tell someone how I fell about them, but for some reason it is really difficult to tell someone how I feel. It's really strange. I've tried to put my feelings in a spreadsheet before but it didn't work.

 

[Poki]

I was going to be selfish and just ask for opinions about Extraverted Feeling cheese, but I'd be interested in Introverted Feeling as well.

Extraverted Feeling is often boiled down to the desire to connect to others. It seems that this can manifest itself in ways such as picking out the perfect gift on someone's birthday, defining social roles and rules, customs and social norms, hosting and caretaking, community, sympathy for others, reading others to an astonishing degree, and remaining loyal to certain groups of people. Negatively, this can mean shirking one's own needs in order to fulfill those of others.

I include Fi because it's described as.. well.. "often hard to describe." Introverted Feeling has, however, been described as staying true to oneself, empathy, internal harmony, a subjective filter, and the desire to allow each individual his or her own unique point of view on various subjects.

So, how do you think this manifests in you? Which parts of the descriptions are spot-on, and which are bogus?

Fe is just as you described. If I am saving up for something I want and someone else I really care about has a huge desire for something I will give up my savings and start over. Unless the people I care about are happy I neglect my needs. I will be on a constant quest to make them happy. I see this same exact thing with ENFJ. The difference seems to be that ENFJ are more people persons so there group of people to please is a whole lot bigger than my group of people to please. So their Fe shows alot more.

I think P types are more likely to allow others to have there own point of view whether it be thought or feeling. Hence P types have Fi or Ti as there dominant or auxilary function. In this sense we also expect that we are allowed to have our own thoughts and feelings.