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[MBTI General] The Importance of Feeling

Liesl

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There are a lot of people out there that don't believe it's important to deal with their emotional states. I know I prioritize dealing with my emotions (not just because it's a statement of what I think is important, but also because it's necessary for my wellbeing) and want others to see that as an equally legitimate way of managing life. But I get belittled a lot for giving so much importance to my psychology, my identity, and my emotions. Have you NFs had similar experiences with this? And how do you deal with this?
 
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Glycerine

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I think it may partly be because emotions can be draining and insanely painful to deal with. I know that is why I demonize my own emotions sometimes.
 

angell_m

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I can't deal with queasy-ness. I have to go to sleep.
 

Liesl

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I think it may partly be because emotions can be draining and insanely painful to deal with. I know that is why I demonize my own emotions sometimes.
But do you ever get told that you think feeling is too important? Or that you place too much value on your emotions?

I always feel really irritated with this argument because I want to tell people that "thinking" is really not that important.

Do you get what I'm saying? It's like there's a bias against "feeling"...like it's not as valid a way of prioritizing things as "thinking."
I can't deal with queasy-ness. I have to go to sleep.
Hmm, well, I don't like queasiness either. But I wasn't referring to feelings related to physical states.
 

stringstheory

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But I get belittled a lot for giving so much importance to my psychology, my identity, and my emotions. Have you NFs had similar experiences with this? And how do you deal with this?

I can't say i really have, no. i've never been belittled for it. If i were i would probably be inclined to :rolli: a little bit.

i think some of the people I know might disagree if the topic happens to come up in conversation because they experience these things differently, but i can hold my own in terms of explaining my own priorities.
 
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Glycerine

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But do you ever get told that you think feeling is too important? Or that you place too much value on your emotions?

I always feel really irritated with this argument because I want to tell people that "thinking" is really not that important.

Do you get what I'm saying? It's like there's a bias against "feeling"...like it's not as valid a way of prioritizing things as "thinking."
Yes "Feeling" does seemed to be downplayed IRL, especially in academics and business.

Where do you get the bias?

Do you get the "bias" from this site? This site sometimes seems to have a strong bias against feelers but I prefer this site a lot more to Personality Cafe (even though it seems quite feeler because they seem pretty segregated over there and it always seems like there is too much "ENFJ", "ENFP", *insert any other type* mentality.
 

Liesl

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Yes "Feeling" does seemed to be downplayed IRL, especially in academics and business.

Where do you get the bias?

Do you get the "bias" from this site? This site sometimes seems to have a strong bias against feelers but I prefer this site a lot more to Personality Cafe (even though it seems quite feeler because they seem pretty segregated over there and it always seems like there is too much "ENFJ", "ENFP", *insert any other type* mentality.
Hmmm, I haven't really thought about whether I get it on this site. Now that I think about it, I'd say so. But I notice it all the time in my daily life. It may because the settings that I'm typically in are so ST/NT dominated.

I guess what bothers me is that I'm accommodating to 'thinking' types. I understand why they choose to do things differently and I don't criticize or object or belittle them for it. But with a few exceptions, I don't think I've ever gotten the same respect from a thinking type. And because of those exceptions, I know it's totally possible for them to accommodate my differences.
 

Liesl

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I can't say i really have, no. i've never been belittled for it. If i were i would probably be inclined to :rolli: a little bit.

i think some of the people I know might disagree if the topic happens to come up in conversation because they experience these things differently, but i can hold my own in terms of explaining my own priorities.
:) I can too, but when people who have power or authority over you don't treat you with respect, what you say doesn't matter. It's only what they think that matters.
 

Vamp

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Yep. I should have been doing that all along. Dealing with my real feelings. Now I don't even know that they are. I've been letting people tell me feelings are nonsense and believing it. Caused problems.
 

Liesl

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Yep. I should have been doing that all along. Dealing with my real feelings. Now I don't even know that they are. I've been letting people tell me feelings are nonsense and believing it. Caused problems.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. I get told to dissociate from feelings rather than deal with them. Whilst it may benefit an organization or another person for me to deny my feelings, I have found that this can only cause me harm.
 

Vamp

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. I get told to dissociate from feelings rather than deal with them. Whilst it may benefit an organization or another person for me to deny my feelings, I have found that this can only cause me harm.

Same here. To the point that I've become emotionally unaware because I'm so used to suppressing them, Then, I feel like something's really, really and can't even point out where it's coming from.
 

Hopelandic

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Can't say I have been belittled for wanting to sort out emotions (but I don't know that many people, and I am naive in life experience, because I've generally been surrounded by people who... don't confront you with things or who are aggressive), but I do experience a constant pressure to totally ignore them.

In regards to feelings and how I "feel" about things; my highschool teachers actually constantly brought that out in me. They encouraged me to have strong opinions (because at that point, I didn't really know how I felt about many things). But in the real world, away from education, and perhaps the internet, having strongly felt opinions, is often considered a 'bad thing'. Especially in the workforce.
 

angell_m

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Hmm, well, I don't like queasiness either. But I wasn't referring to feelings related to physical states.

I don't recognize regular "feelings" unless they effect me physically, I've either growned accustmed with them or growned numb.
 

Mondo

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This is exactly what I'm talking about. I get told to dissociate from feelings rather than deal with them. Whilst it may benefit an organization or another person for me to deny my feelings, I have found that this can only cause me harm.


There's one problem here.
Dissociating oneself from feelings and denying them are two completely different things!
To dissociate is to separate, to deny is to refuse to acknowledge something.
I don't know exactly what people are telling you but typically when a person tells someone else to dissociate from his or her feelings- it is moreso a "plea" to a person to look at things more objectively. This doesn't require neglecting feelings.

In fact, the majority of people who can legitimately consider themselves happy with their lives don't deny their feelings at all. They use their feelings to help determine what they want out of life and their reason to
a.) Decide if the things they want or reasonable to want.
b.) Figure out how to get the things they want.

This might be my Fe talking but it's typically distressful to most organizations and most people to have a person who is always being emotional and unreasonable. I sympathize with those who tell such a person to dissociate from his or her emotions. It's selfish to let feelings control a person's life completely without anything else! It's primitive. It doesn't have anything to do with Thinking/Feeling, it's more so who is mature and who isn't mature.

There are plenty of Feeling types who can do this and I know of many NF/SF types who are able to do this quite well without having to deny the existence of their strong feelings about things.
No human being unless that human being is actually a Vulcan or John Galt should deny his or her feelings.
 

Liesl

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There's one problem here.
Dissociating oneself from feelings and denying them are two completely different things!
To dissociate is to separate, to deny is to refuse to acknowledge something.
I don't know exactly what people are telling you but typically when a person tells someone else to dissociate from his or her feelings- it is moreso a "plea" to a person to look at things more objectively. This doesn't require neglecting feelings.

In fact, the majority of people who can legitimately consider themselves happy with their lives don't deny their feelings at all. They use their feelings to help determine what they want out of life and their reason to
a.) Decide if the things they want or reasonable to want.
b.) Figure out how to get the things they want.

This might be my Fe talking but it's typically distressful to most organizations and most people to have a person who is always being emotional and unreasonable. I sympathize with those who tell such a person to dissociate from his or her emotions. It's selfish to let feelings control a person's life completely without anything else! It's primitive. It doesn't have anything to do with Thinking/Feeling, it's more so who is mature and who isn't mature.

There are plenty of Feeling types who can do this and I know of many NF/SF types who are able to do this quite well without having to deny the existence of their strong feelings about things.
No human being unless that human being is actually a Vulcan or John Galt should deny his or her feelings.
I can't speak for anyone else but I know addressing my own emotions is part of my fundamental well-being. Call me an "extreme" feeler or whatever you want. But in order to function normally, I need a certain amount of freedom and independence and ability to make choices for myself. I have psychological needs that are as fundamental to my daily life as my physical needs. When I'm under psychological stress, within days it manifests itself as physical illness. The mind and the body are connected.

Looking at a situation objectively means taking a lot of things into consideration, including emotions. And ultimately, there's no such thing as looking at something "objectively" because the weight that people place on various factors depends on their own priorities. And we already know that people have fundamentally different priorities and motivations in life. A "thinking" type simply weighs impersonal factors more than personal factors. A "feeling" type weighs personal factors more than impersonal factors. I really object to this idea that feelers leave out criteria that thinkers don't. All types leave out an equal amount of criteria. It's just what those criteria are that makes the difference.

Everybody has to be responsible for their own personal well-being. In order to do that, you have to create an environment where everybody CAN take care of their own personal well-being. To create an environment that is biased toward people that prioritize things a certain way is exactly that: biased. What I'm objecting to is preventing people from taking care of themselves because you insist that they evaluate situations the same way you do, which is discriminating. They think that their method of evaluating is somehow more legitimate. That's impossible because we're all biased toward prioritizing different things for our own benefit.

I have no sympathy for people who get in the way of other people being able to take care of themselves. This is what's really selfish and immature!
 

Shmooooooooo

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I, as an INTP, until very recently had just the despicable view of emotions as completely irrational and stupid. I considered use of emotion - especially to persuade - as indicative of some sort of mental debility.

You can imagine how much pain this caused to my INFP mother.

However, after getting a bit into MBTI, I did a fair bit of soul searching and much to my horror came to the realization that it was I who was at fault for the vast majority of the conflict and the suffering growing over the past years living with my mother. So she and I had a bit of a sit-down where I explained my ignorance and how wrong I was to completely ignore emotion. This was definitely a big healing moment, as my mother had feared we would simply grow apart without ever having understood one another when I move to university in about a month. In addition, I've definitely become more aware of my own subjective values, the possession of which I had been in denial about.

While my mother and I still don't always see eye to eye, now I definitely go out of my way to see things from point of view, whereas previously I would simply tend to steamroll anything she was saying as stupid. Conversely, she also realized that my emotional detachment wasn't necessarily borderline autism, and that just because I almost never express what I feel doesn't mean I feel nothing.

So yeah, emotions are important. Understand them, tend them. Even if you don't use them in large part yourself, accept them as a valid way of achieving reconciliation with the world around you.
 

Liesl

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I, as an INTP, until very recently had just the despicable view of emotions as completely irrational and stupid. I considered use of emotion - especially to persuade - as indicative of some sort of mental debility.

You can imagine how much pain this caused to my INFP mother.

However, after getting a bit into MBTI, I did a fair bit of soul searching and much to my horror came to the realization that it was I who was at fault for the vast majority of the conflict and the suffering growing over the past years living with my mother. So she and I had a bit of a sit-down where I explained my ignorance and how wrong I was to completely ignore emotion. This was definitely a big healing moment, as my mother had feared we would simply grow apart without ever having understood one another when I move to university in about a month. In addition, I've definitely become more aware of my own subjective values, the possession of which I had been in denial about.

While my mother and I still don't always see eye to eye, now I definitely go out of my way to see things from point of view, whereas previously I would simply tend to steamroll anything she was saying as stupid. Conversely, she also realized that my emotional detachment wasn't necessarily borderline autism, and that just because I almost never express what I feel doesn't mean I feel nothing.

So yeah, emotions are important. Understand them, tend them. Even if you don't use them in large part yourself, accept them as a valid way of achieving reconciliation with the world around you.
YES!! SOMEONE WHO GETS IT!

Now if only I could find a way of orchestrating enlightenment for the rest.
 

mochajava

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You're right -- this bias absolutely exists. I find this in the male, engineer-dominated environments I've mostly spent my time in. And it is draining! Facts and logic are not 100% of who I am, and I will not deny the rest. (FTR: I'm not saying ANYTHING against males or engineers, or even making generalizations about them -- just saying those logic is the one and only MO in the pieces of those environments that I've experienced).

Other biases against? Humanities. Social sciences. Females. Anything feminine. Anything "squishy". Anything emotional. Anything you can't freaking write an equation for!

Sorry -- I didn't realize I would start ranting in this text box, Leisl. But I just wanted to say that you're not alone at all. This thing you're picking up is abundantly real, and I think you just have to stand up for this way in which you function that happens to be different than that environment. There are some societies, however, taht are the opposite. Have you read/seen ethnographies?
 

mochajava

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Same here. To the point that I've become emotionally unaware because I'm so used to suppressing them, Then, I feel like something's really, really and can't even point out where it's coming from.

Ooh. Strikes a chord. I'm the same way, but I think that's because of a past history of abuse / hostile family environment where there was no room for me to have feelings. You?
 

Arclight

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Put on a Poker face.. smile a lot, tell jokes.Don't let them see you worry. Act like you haven't a care in the world.
Go home and cry yourself to sleep , again.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Sometimes I write a poem

That's how I deal with my feelings.
 
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