BallentineChen
New member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2008
- Messages
- 152
- MBTI Type
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 3w4
I don't know if any INFJs share this experience, but I have a strong visceral disdain for people that I perceive as weak willed. However, I also know that this disdain is rooted in the weakness that I perceive in myself. At times this disdain is overtly antagonistic.
This thread was triggered by a fight I just had earlier tonight with my younger brother. He drives me on a semi-daily basis to the train station. Whenever he does, I notice the way he grips the bottom of the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers. How I perceive this is that it's an extremely weak grip in that 1) his grip on the steering wheel can be easily overcome as hitting something as simple as a pothole 2) the position of his hands at the bottom does not allow him to react quickly in case of an emergency. In my simmering, I cannot understand why he cannot just wrap his fingers around the steering wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions. This is all amidst the backdrop of me witnessing his inability to quit smoking pot. Here, I see myself extending this "weakness" narrative from his weed addiction to his driving style.
Now, given that I have legitimate reason to be unhappy with his addiction, I think my anger towards him is comingled with my own projection of weakness onto him. Jung described that when someone reacts disproportionately to the perceived offense, one can suspect that the shadow or anima is being projected. Before I read that I already knew that these feelings were fueled by my disdain for my own weakness, but this is the first time I'm really dealing with it on such a conscious level.
Lastly, I remember reading somewhere that INFJs in general have a disdain for weakness, I wonder whether this is true for other people on this forum.
At some point during this weekend I plan on talking to my brother about this. We have a somewhat complicated relationship, I really cannot spend prolonged periods with him without him grating on me, but we can open channels of communication when there are conflicts.
In sum, how many INFJs share this disdain for weakness? Have you explored the reasons for why that might be? What did you do as a result of realizing this? Please discuss, even if an idea is tangentially, but substantively, related.
SHADOW: the image Jung used to describe those qualities in ourselves that we repress because they are unacceptable to our ego ideal. Jung once called the Shadow “the thing a person has no wish to be”; it is the opposite of the conscious personality (see Wehr 59). The shadow personifies the contents of one's personal unconscious but also has a strong archetypal component.
This thread was triggered by a fight I just had earlier tonight with my younger brother. He drives me on a semi-daily basis to the train station. Whenever he does, I notice the way he grips the bottom of the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers. How I perceive this is that it's an extremely weak grip in that 1) his grip on the steering wheel can be easily overcome as hitting something as simple as a pothole 2) the position of his hands at the bottom does not allow him to react quickly in case of an emergency. In my simmering, I cannot understand why he cannot just wrap his fingers around the steering wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions. This is all amidst the backdrop of me witnessing his inability to quit smoking pot. Here, I see myself extending this "weakness" narrative from his weed addiction to his driving style.
Now, given that I have legitimate reason to be unhappy with his addiction, I think my anger towards him is comingled with my own projection of weakness onto him. Jung described that when someone reacts disproportionately to the perceived offense, one can suspect that the shadow or anima is being projected. Before I read that I already knew that these feelings were fueled by my disdain for my own weakness, but this is the first time I'm really dealing with it on such a conscious level.
Lastly, I remember reading somewhere that INFJs in general have a disdain for weakness, I wonder whether this is true for other people on this forum.
At some point during this weekend I plan on talking to my brother about this. We have a somewhat complicated relationship, I really cannot spend prolonged periods with him without him grating on me, but we can open channels of communication when there are conflicts.
In sum, how many INFJs share this disdain for weakness? Have you explored the reasons for why that might be? What did you do as a result of realizing this? Please discuss, even if an idea is tangentially, but substantively, related.