Z Buck McFate
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2009
- Messages
- 6,050
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
I think NFJs in particular have a certain sensitivity to cues that suggest some 'why'; it’ll seem ‘clear’ why someone said or did something- and it even takes a little effort to back up and separate the ‘why’ (the instant impression that pops into our head) from what’s actually in front of us. I think many of us learn to try to disregard it or pencil it in as a very tentative possibility instead of reacting to it directly though because it’s rather presumptuous- as fid pointed out, a great deal of it is simply making sense of others' actions by attaching what it would mean if we did it ourselves, and while that is *somewhat* reliable it isn’t anywhere near fool-proof. But my point is, I think NFJs are flooded with 'whys' in a way that others aren't. It’s important to take responsibility for it and clear up the possibilities we are flooded with, but it’s not really a choice to see ‘whys’ all over the place. [With NFPs, sensitivity tends to center more around the 'whats'.]
As an example (not of me, but of my INFJ son reading into things): when my son was learning to drive a couple of years ago, he had a hard time focusing on driving because of cues going on in the car. I was grabbing the door handle and/or that roof handle thingie when he turned corners to brace myself- not hard, but just enough that he noticed and it made him anxious and he kept asking me to stop doing it. I explained he was doing a great job with turning corners, and that I wasn’t holding onto the door more than I usually do at corners- it was just that he was never in the front seat with me before so he never noticed- but he still had a hard time with it and kept reacting as though I was actually chiding him with “Slow down, your turning too fast!†After a couple of hours he got used to it and was able to tune it out- I think it became believable to him when I consistently held onto the handles every single time he turned, no matter how slowly he went- but at first, seeing this out of the corner of his eye was kinda the same as me actually saying something to him (and it was hard for him to immediately believe otherwise when I directly told him he was good at turning corners because the cues strongly suggested the contrary).
So anyway, this sensitivity to cues is a hindrance in relationships sometimes because it puts a lot of restrictions on who I can form genuine relationships with/who I can feel comfortable around. And it’s why- as fid has said so many times- it’s incredibly important that I be able to ask people and clear up possibilities about those cues because it’s agitating to feel like there’s an elephant in the room that I’m not allowed to ask about or that I have to make sense of on my own- it feels disrespectful and presumptuous to do that. It's clearly there to me and I don't like defining it all by myself. When I sense certain topics are invasive to someone, or that it’s agitating to bring them up, I have to keep them at a distance to minimize this automatic urge to make sense of the pieces- the more I distance someone, the more I can leave those ‘whys’ open-ended and make no presumptions about them. But then I really do have to keep them at a distance or the ‘white noise’ it creates gets too distracting. Like with my sister (who is either ISTP or ISTJ, I think), she does not want to discuss a lot of things and gets angry at me for even trying to clear things up- so I have to shut off caring about a lot of things that I don't like being indifferent about.....but I seriously can't handle someone being very important to me while not being able to clear up the things that occur to me. It’s kind of like the game Tetris- where the pieces fall and I have to decide what to do with them, where to put them based on what makes sense/where they ‘fit’- and if I can’t directly ask a person about it when a piece looks like it doesn’t fit anywhere, or if that person routinely tells me something that doesn’t make sense or gets angry that I’m even asking- I have to avoid the person because it’s just too confusing to deal with them. I can't stop the pieces from coming simply because they other person doesn't want me to acknowledge they're there.
I’m sure I have this affect on people too, sometimes. I wouldn’t even say it’s that I need to understand in order to decide how to behave in response so much as it’s about making sense of the stories that flood my awareness. I mean, I guess it is about ‘understanding so that I can decide how to behave’, but only in the sense that it’s my primary means of navigating the external world and it’s like I’m flying blind without it. I don’t actively choose to go looking for pieces to make sense of though- I have to make sense of the pieces that are appearing on their own. And so asking a lot of questions is actually my attempt at being respectful and making sure the intuitive leaps of my mind are sensible to others as well. I do often pick up on the cues though that someone else sees it as being ‘too much’ (that they don’t understand the need to bounce it off others) so I try to keep it limited to the people who understand why I need to do it. [I'm not discounting the possibility that skylight's friend really is just being callous- I'm just saying I probably come across that way too myself at times.]
All this^, an absolutely essential aspect of ‘insight’ is accepting and taking responsibility for the extent to which interpretation of the cues could be wrong.
As an example (not of me, but of my INFJ son reading into things): when my son was learning to drive a couple of years ago, he had a hard time focusing on driving because of cues going on in the car. I was grabbing the door handle and/or that roof handle thingie when he turned corners to brace myself- not hard, but just enough that he noticed and it made him anxious and he kept asking me to stop doing it. I explained he was doing a great job with turning corners, and that I wasn’t holding onto the door more than I usually do at corners- it was just that he was never in the front seat with me before so he never noticed- but he still had a hard time with it and kept reacting as though I was actually chiding him with “Slow down, your turning too fast!†After a couple of hours he got used to it and was able to tune it out- I think it became believable to him when I consistently held onto the handles every single time he turned, no matter how slowly he went- but at first, seeing this out of the corner of his eye was kinda the same as me actually saying something to him (and it was hard for him to immediately believe otherwise when I directly told him he was good at turning corners because the cues strongly suggested the contrary).
So anyway, this sensitivity to cues is a hindrance in relationships sometimes because it puts a lot of restrictions on who I can form genuine relationships with/who I can feel comfortable around. And it’s why- as fid has said so many times- it’s incredibly important that I be able to ask people and clear up possibilities about those cues because it’s agitating to feel like there’s an elephant in the room that I’m not allowed to ask about or that I have to make sense of on my own- it feels disrespectful and presumptuous to do that. It's clearly there to me and I don't like defining it all by myself. When I sense certain topics are invasive to someone, or that it’s agitating to bring them up, I have to keep them at a distance to minimize this automatic urge to make sense of the pieces- the more I distance someone, the more I can leave those ‘whys’ open-ended and make no presumptions about them. But then I really do have to keep them at a distance or the ‘white noise’ it creates gets too distracting. Like with my sister (who is either ISTP or ISTJ, I think), she does not want to discuss a lot of things and gets angry at me for even trying to clear things up- so I have to shut off caring about a lot of things that I don't like being indifferent about.....but I seriously can't handle someone being very important to me while not being able to clear up the things that occur to me. It’s kind of like the game Tetris- where the pieces fall and I have to decide what to do with them, where to put them based on what makes sense/where they ‘fit’- and if I can’t directly ask a person about it when a piece looks like it doesn’t fit anywhere, or if that person routinely tells me something that doesn’t make sense or gets angry that I’m even asking- I have to avoid the person because it’s just too confusing to deal with them. I can't stop the pieces from coming simply because they other person doesn't want me to acknowledge they're there.
with my ENFJ best friend, I'm kind of off-put sometimes by the way she is always "investigating" everyone... like everyone is always a problem open for her to solve and that she can figure them out. It seems kind of belittling. The way fidelia explains it as needing to understand so you can decide how to behave in response makes sense... I think sometimes my ENFJ gets a little lost in the "game" of it, though, and loses some empathy in the process (just as I, admittedly, can get lost in the "game" of getting on others' emotional level, and encourage them to place more trust in me than they probably should).
I’m sure I have this affect on people too, sometimes. I wouldn’t even say it’s that I need to understand in order to decide how to behave in response so much as it’s about making sense of the stories that flood my awareness. I mean, I guess it is about ‘understanding so that I can decide how to behave’, but only in the sense that it’s my primary means of navigating the external world and it’s like I’m flying blind without it. I don’t actively choose to go looking for pieces to make sense of though- I have to make sense of the pieces that are appearing on their own. And so asking a lot of questions is actually my attempt at being respectful and making sure the intuitive leaps of my mind are sensible to others as well. I do often pick up on the cues though that someone else sees it as being ‘too much’ (that they don’t understand the need to bounce it off others) so I try to keep it limited to the people who understand why I need to do it. [I'm not discounting the possibility that skylight's friend really is just being callous- I'm just saying I probably come across that way too myself at times.]
I have to say that I've never bought into the idea that some people don't like INFJs because we're too insightful. I've heard this quite a bit and it seems like a really arrogant approach.
JivinJeffJones said:I think if your insights into people cause them to shut down then you're probably doing it wrong. A bit more insight into people might help with that.
bologna said:I'll clarify, here: paying attention isn't itself insight--but it's necessary to pay attention to what life throws at you in order to gain or refine insight. That is, it's a matter of taking in information and also processing it correctly.
All this^, an absolutely essential aspect of ‘insight’ is accepting and taking responsibility for the extent to which interpretation of the cues could be wrong.