• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[Fi] Can you relate?

hjgbujhghg

I am
Joined
Jun 6, 2013
Messages
3,333
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w3
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I wasn't aware of this for a long time, but I've started to notice something interesting about the way I process feelings. I often don't know how I feel about something, or someone, a lot of stuff, people and places actually leave me cold at first.

I often only relaze how I feel about something or someone when I write it down or when I use other creative expressions, like music for example. Yesterday I was actually writing a poem and only after I wrote the poem I was like "aha! This is how I feel"

The process of feeling happens so deep in my unconscious that it can be really hard for me to know how I feel about something just like that. And when I write, or when I am creative I don't really think. It just happens, just idea after idea, word after word, like I have a voice inside that dictates me what to write and what to do. Only when I work with my unconscious like this I can finally process and understands my feelings.

Is this how Fi can be too? Can any Fi dom relate?
 

Watchtower

New member
Joined
Nov 8, 2015
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I often don't know how I feel about something, or someone, a lot of stuff, people and places actually leave me cold at first.

Well, I don't know about other Fi-doms, but that's exactly what I struggle with too. It's like I don't know how to react because the impulse hasn't reached the right places quite yet. All I get is a nagging feeling that something isn't right, something's happened, but I can't pinpoint it with as much precision as I'd like. It always takes some time to process things, but once I get there, it's very clear.
 

magpie

Permabanned
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
3,428
Enneagram
614
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I don't really relate to this. I know immediately how I feel. What I struggle with is figuring out why.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
The main time I struggle with this is if what I feel is different from what I would like to feel. The main context is in romantic relationship when I want to love the person and feel only positive things, but they have actually made me very angry. If the dynamic is one in which they express a lot of needs, so that I feel sorry for them or that their needs are very urgent, then in those relationships I would reject my anger at first.

Nowadays I'm aware of what I'm feeling, especially if it involves anxiety. I usually know what upset me, but the main mystery is why that specific thing upsets me to such a significant degree. It's the intensity of the feeling I can't always explain.
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
7,626
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Yeah, but I can explore things in my imagination too and come to some realization, although creating is immensely useful to giving a form, which seems to validate it for me. I remember lamenting to another INFP how I stopped drawing years ago, despite loving it and drawing constantly as a child, and he offered this amazing insight: I don't need to draw anymore because I have become better at direct expression. I will add to that and say I have become better at identifying feelings outside of abstract concepts too.

I recognize what you are saying about not having an immediate feeling to most things as they happen or to most people in the moment. Many times, I feel stunned in such a way that I appear not to care. I really go deer in the headlights. Other times, a vague feeling born of emotion is sort of put on hold until I can be alone to ruminate. Still other times nothing strikes me until I am trying to put my finger on a mood that is haunting me.

I have always considered some of this a comfort with suspension of judgment, or with gray areas....at worst, it is terrible indecisiveness, too much benefit of the doubt, and concern over making the wrong choice (needing to consider more factors to determine what is most ideal; or in this case, to gather more info to compare it to an inner ideal to determine how I feel about it).

At times I am much clearer about and more conscious of my feeling-ideals in general than how I personally feel about stuff in the moment, which is hard to explain as I am always aware of my emotions. It is like the emotions signal, but I have to retreat to figure out exactly what it all means.

Later, in my imagination, it is like it connects to some unconcious ideals and I may find a way to give it form. Giving it form definitely helps me understand how I feel better about a specific thing, as opposed to just a general concept.

I have tried to work on how things make me feel in a moment. It is less about Feeling as a rational thing and more about immediate emotions and sensations, which I am aware of, yet detached from in that suspended way.
 

cascadeco

New member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,083
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Yes and No.

I actually do have pretty immediate feelings around things, however, almost all of the time they are multi-layered and there are many different feelings going on. I also have to say, the positive feelings I don't feel as much a need to explore, it's the negative ones that I feel the need to explore a lot more. So with negatives, I may feel something very surface-level -- for example, some main 'instantaneous' feelings can be anxiety, annoyance. Those are really generic feelings that to me are just symptomatic, almost -- the actual reason I'm having them are due to much deeper things.

It's the deeper things that I'll need time to sort through or space to recognize -- to peel away the surface stuff /allow the surface stuff to dissipate so I'm able to actually see the real stuff that's going on.
 
Joined
Jun 25, 2014
Messages
1,447
MBTI Type
*NF*
Enneagram
852
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I wasn't aware of this for a long time, but I've started to notice something interesting about the way I process feelings. I often don't know how I feel about something, or someone, a lot of stuff, people and places actually leave me cold at first.

I often only relaze how I feel about something or someone when I write it down or when I use other creative expressions, like music for example. Yesterday I was actually writing a poem and only after I wrote the poem I was like "aha! This is how I feel"

The process of feeling happens so deep in my unconscious that it can be really hard for me to know how I feel about something just like that. And when I write, or when I am creative I don't really think. It just happens, just idea after idea, word after word, like I have a voice inside that dictates me what to write and what to do. Only when I work with my unconscious like this I can finally process and understands my feelings.

Is this how Fi can be too? Can any Fi dom relate?

I am Se Dom and it's only after writing poems, songs, working on my "sublimation" process I can access my feelings most of the time.

The reason is : it seems much more "useful" and "clear" to me than just "feeling". I also enjoy the creativity and I must say through "mind games" a lot of deep & serious

things can happen but... shut...its' a secret ;) The purpose of those "mirror/words games" is that it allows the unconscious to express itself indeed.

If nobody asks me "how do you feel", I'll probably never express it myself unless I feel very angry or very sad (extremes).

That's why to take care (and become more conscious) of my own feelings I need ART, and more generally self-expression.
 

ZNP-TBA

Privileged Sh!tlord
Joined
Jun 12, 2015
Messages
3,001
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
7w8
Instinctual Variant
sx
I appreciate the Fi ability to care about how they feel about shit. It seems they consume a lot of their cognitive energy figuring it all out until some acceptable answer is found. I hardly ever think deeply about how I feel about something.

When asked seriously how do you feel about that? I usually draw blanks and it not because its too complicated to explain on the spot or that a lot of mental processing is required it's just that my personal feelings on matters vary in degree of importance and most of the time not enough focus is given to them.
 

Yama

Permabanned
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
7,684
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
I can relate but I'm not Fi
 

Forever

Permabanned
Joined
Aug 30, 2013
Messages
8,551
MBTI Type
NiFi
Enneagram
3w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
I should try this.
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
Joined
Aug 29, 2008
Messages
19,129
MBTI Type
ESTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Yes and No.

I actually do have pretty immediate feelings around things, however, almost all of the time they are multi-layered and there are many different feelings going on. I also have to say, the positive feelings I don't feel as much a need to explore, it's the negative ones that I feel the need to explore a lot more. So with negatives, I may feel something very surface-level -- for example, some main 'instantaneous' feelings can be anxiety, annoyance. Those are really generic feelings that to me are just symptomatic, almost -- the actual reason I'm having them are due to much deeper things.

It's the deeper things that I'll need time to sort through or space to recognize -- to peel away the surface stuff /allow the surface stuff to dissipate so I'm able to actually see the real stuff that's going on.
This resonates with me.

I have opinions about most things, and because of type-related reasons (re both Enneagram and MBTI), those opinions are very emotionally loaded. I have a lot of strong, instant gut reactions to things, internally. But I don't often look too far down under there to see if those feelings are hiding anything. Not to mention, there's a LOT of negative space around those feelings that I don't notice or think about.
 

Obfuscate

Permabanned
Joined
Aug 20, 2016
Messages
1,907
MBTI Type
iNtP
Enneagram
954
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
i can relate on some level (and have had the same experience while writing poetry)... the inferior function of intp is Fe, so i am not sure if that is helpful to you...
 

Flâneuse

don't ask me
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Messages
947
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
From what I've heard, this is pretty common among artistically creative people in general - the act of creating is what helps them unravel, process, and understand the feelings that are driving them. If there's a correlation with type, I think it has as least as much to do with e4 tendencies as it does with Fi tendencies.

I'm a Fi-dom e9 and TBH I don't relate much. I figure out how I feel pretty easily, probably because my feelings aren't very complex most of the time. (When I do have complicated feelings it takes me time to sort them out, but I very rarely use artistic pursuits to help me do that.) Despite the simplicity of my feelings, I still can have a very hard time finding the right language to describe them (words like "happy", "sad", "angry" just seem like dull boxes; it's like having to describe some really strange color you've never seen before with one word like "blue"), and I also struggle to figure out why I feel a certain way.
 

Anzela

New member
Joined
Sep 30, 2016
Messages
3
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
I know my thought processes well enough to predict decisions before actually going through the process. Feelings, however, are evasive until the exact moment that I feel them. Often, going through the process (as you mentioned - writing, expressing), I find that I really didn't feel what I thought I felt, or rather, that through the exhaustion of the process, the item is no longer something I value. Often, once I express my concerns, I'm ready to move forward and whatever it was driving my concern no longer seems to matter.
 

Lia_kat

New member
Joined
Jan 6, 2016
Messages
750
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Yes and No.

I actually do have pretty immediate feelings around things, however, almost all of the time they are multi-layered and there are many different feelings going on. I also have to say, the positive feelings I don't feel as much a need to explore, it's the negative ones that I feel the need to explore a lot more. So with negatives, I may feel something very surface-level -- for example, some main 'instantaneous' feelings can be anxiety, annoyance. Those are really generic feelings that to me are just symptomatic, almost -- the actual reason I'm having them are due to much deeper things.

It's the deeper things that I'll need time to sort through or space to recognize -- to peel away the surface stuff /allow the surface stuff to dissipate so I'm able to actually see the real stuff that's going on.

I don't really relate to this. I know immediately how I feel. What I struggle with is figuring out why.

This.
 
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Messages
1,659
I can tell whether I like something or not instinctively, but I find it difficult to explain it in words verbally. I can sit and reason with myself on why I feel a certain way about something, but writing things down is definitely my preference for explaining my reasons for it. It usually comes out in random bursts from my mind. For instance, I usually start out with fragments and just list them out, coming out with an incoherent list, and somehow tie them all together in the end. It works great in writing, but verbally it comes out sometimes like blarney. :p It takes time for me to find the exact word or phrase I'd want to use, so writing is the more preferable verbal outlet.
 

gromit

likes this
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
6,508
Yeah maybe. I often feel a strong reaction but don't always know how to explain or describe it right away. Sometimes it's only later and randomly I'll be like "oh that's what was going on"

Does anybody really know what they are feeling right away all the time though? I thought it was pretty normal not to know, at least not always.

Like it seems like people who do have a rare skill.
 

William K

Uniqueorn
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
986
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
I wasn't aware of this for a long time, but I've started to notice something interesting about the way I process feelings. I often don't know how I feel about something, or someone, a lot of stuff, people and places actually leave me cold at first.

I think of it as a system of classification (and energy conservation). Like mentioned earlier in the thread, we tend to over-think things a lot :D

If I encounter a situation, the first thought would be "How deeply does this matter to me?" Sometimes, it's quickly clear that "Oooo, I like this" or "Yuck, that is gross" but a lot of times, there are things that if I don't have to give an opinion immediately, I'd just remain neutral and not make any judgement.

However, this doesn't mean that the matter is forgotten. It's just stored somewhere in the brain where I think there is some subconscious process trying to fit this piece into the big puzzle that is my value tree. Then sometimes, a pattern or match is found within my value chain and "Aha! That's where that fits" and that piece of information is integrated. Don't think I have control over what triggers it. Not a creative person so that doesn't help :D
 
Top