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[INFJ] Common INFJ issues
- Thread starter Fidelia
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goldrule2
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My goodness, your list is me almost down to a T. I'm not sure there's anything much there that I haven't observed in myself at least occasionally, and sometimes consistently. Thanks for that
I don't think that Fidelia was claiming that INFJs exclusively have a different way of seeing things, but are perfect within that, while everyone else has character flaws. I didn't get that at all from her list. She acknowledged that there were things she was working on.
Every type has weaknesses and strengths. The value of MBTI, in my opinion, is FINDING OUT WHAT WE HAVE TO WORK WITH, and working to improve the weaknesses and heighten the strengths.
I like your post "Silk"; makes sense from my INTP perspective.
Cognitive Cartograph
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[QUOTE
Originally Posted by Arclight
Hi Zanzi
I have been racking my brain trying to find a solution and a way to articulate what it is I exactly feel. So that I could express it and not hurt people...
Imagine people as beams of light shining across the room onto a blank wall. The color of the beams change with the mood of the person. Whenever the lights are in contact, the colors mingle, creating a new color on the wall.
If bright blue means happiness, Fe will seek to create bright blue whenever it comes into contact with another beam. In a relationship, we always keep an eye on your beam, and another on the mixed color on the wall. When you shift from blue to green to red, we carefully shift our color to balance you out and try to maintain the bright blue of happiness on the wall, and try to nudge you back to bright blue and so we can as well. It's a delicate dance. We are aware of you at all times. Everything we do, every second, every move, we do while keeping an eye on your color. At all times, we try to notice subtle changes and try to adapt, so that our mixed color on the wall will be as close to blue as possible. In a way, we cease to be our own beam of light. We become part of us. It's like a dance. When our beam dims from depression, we hope you would help brighten up to balance us out, because we would do the same without even thinking.
Fi seems to see this phenomenon very differently. You are your own beam of light that never changes with contact with other beams. You look at the final color on the wall, but just to observe, without the preconception that it should be bright blue. In the same way, you look at our color and you see it as it is, not as a possible component to which you add your own color to make blue. The changes in your color could be influenced by our color, but never as a direct reaction.
Here is where a lot of problems arise. Fe gets hurt when it realizes there has never been the 'us' beam, that all the 'us' has been one-sided. It has no idea that for Fi there doesn't have to be the 'us' beam, but two separate beams, side by side. Fe can take this as a rejection -- a refusal to merge, to become one. That hurts.
Being a J, an INFJ knows what color he or she wants on the wall. Who doesn't want to be happy? To have a good life, to be healthy, to be safe? In reality the bright blue of perfection is a lot more complex than just 'happiness', because everyone defines happiness differently.
Healthy Fe learns to accept that the spot on the wall doesn't have to be a certain color all the time and that the other person might not even want that certain color. Healthy Fi learns to accept that there are certain colors that work better for both parties and it is in their power to tune their own beam a little to achieve it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think most of the time, INFJs don't judge like a court judges a criminal. For Fi, I know it must seem like it, considering how unjudging Fi is in nature. It's more like we don't understand why you refuse to do the merge. We never said it had to be the way we want. Just tell us what color you like on the wall and we will try to accommodate. We can discuss it and work it out together. However, keep in mind that this 'us' isn't the only spot we shine on. All other relationships require tuning on our part. If what you want is so different that what the rest needs, we are stuck in the middle, and we strain ourselves so hard to keep all the lights blue. No, we cannot stop doing it. For us, not tuning means we don't care.
What does judging mean? It doesn't mean that you have to live up to a certain standard that we set for you. It's just that we keep an eye on the spot of light on the wall where our beams meet, and that we are painfully aware of how everything affects everything else. If your light turns red and makes the mixed light something other than blue, we are aware that it's doing so, and we need to understand why it is red and how we can help. Do we judge you for it? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the thing is, we need to understand why, because we cannot keep our eyes off the color on the wall, the same way you cannot keep your eyes off your own beam and our beam. What guides you is internal. What guides us is the color on the wall. We are far more affected by our mixed effect and without good communication, we are completely lost.
When we love you, we seek to merge with you in this way. You become half of our whole world and not a separate entity.
I have no idea if this is relevant or if other INFJs can relate at all. Sorry for the longwindedness. I got a bit emotional reading Arclight's post and I felt like I had to get something out.][/QUOTE]
What a divinely beautiful piece of writing!
I wish I had been able to receive that level of INFJ understanding into my heart while my husband was still alive. It gives me an even deeper insight into his expression of Love. If we can embrace each other's differences instead of being frustrated by them (not always 100% possible
amazing connections take place!
Originally Posted by Arclight
Hi Zanzi
I have been racking my brain trying to find a solution and a way to articulate what it is I exactly feel. So that I could express it and not hurt people...
Imagine people as beams of light shining across the room onto a blank wall. The color of the beams change with the mood of the person. Whenever the lights are in contact, the colors mingle, creating a new color on the wall.
If bright blue means happiness, Fe will seek to create bright blue whenever it comes into contact with another beam. In a relationship, we always keep an eye on your beam, and another on the mixed color on the wall. When you shift from blue to green to red, we carefully shift our color to balance you out and try to maintain the bright blue of happiness on the wall, and try to nudge you back to bright blue and so we can as well. It's a delicate dance. We are aware of you at all times. Everything we do, every second, every move, we do while keeping an eye on your color. At all times, we try to notice subtle changes and try to adapt, so that our mixed color on the wall will be as close to blue as possible. In a way, we cease to be our own beam of light. We become part of us. It's like a dance. When our beam dims from depression, we hope you would help brighten up to balance us out, because we would do the same without even thinking.
Fi seems to see this phenomenon very differently. You are your own beam of light that never changes with contact with other beams. You look at the final color on the wall, but just to observe, without the preconception that it should be bright blue. In the same way, you look at our color and you see it as it is, not as a possible component to which you add your own color to make blue. The changes in your color could be influenced by our color, but never as a direct reaction.
Here is where a lot of problems arise. Fe gets hurt when it realizes there has never been the 'us' beam, that all the 'us' has been one-sided. It has no idea that for Fi there doesn't have to be the 'us' beam, but two separate beams, side by side. Fe can take this as a rejection -- a refusal to merge, to become one. That hurts.
Being a J, an INFJ knows what color he or she wants on the wall. Who doesn't want to be happy? To have a good life, to be healthy, to be safe? In reality the bright blue of perfection is a lot more complex than just 'happiness', because everyone defines happiness differently.
Healthy Fe learns to accept that the spot on the wall doesn't have to be a certain color all the time and that the other person might not even want that certain color. Healthy Fi learns to accept that there are certain colors that work better for both parties and it is in their power to tune their own beam a little to achieve it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think most of the time, INFJs don't judge like a court judges a criminal. For Fi, I know it must seem like it, considering how unjudging Fi is in nature. It's more like we don't understand why you refuse to do the merge. We never said it had to be the way we want. Just tell us what color you like on the wall and we will try to accommodate. We can discuss it and work it out together. However, keep in mind that this 'us' isn't the only spot we shine on. All other relationships require tuning on our part. If what you want is so different that what the rest needs, we are stuck in the middle, and we strain ourselves so hard to keep all the lights blue. No, we cannot stop doing it. For us, not tuning means we don't care.
What does judging mean? It doesn't mean that you have to live up to a certain standard that we set for you. It's just that we keep an eye on the spot of light on the wall where our beams meet, and that we are painfully aware of how everything affects everything else. If your light turns red and makes the mixed light something other than blue, we are aware that it's doing so, and we need to understand why it is red and how we can help. Do we judge you for it? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the thing is, we need to understand why, because we cannot keep our eyes off the color on the wall, the same way you cannot keep your eyes off your own beam and our beam. What guides you is internal. What guides us is the color on the wall. We are far more affected by our mixed effect and without good communication, we are completely lost.
When we love you, we seek to merge with you in this way. You become half of our whole world and not a separate entity.
I have no idea if this is relevant or if other INFJs can relate at all. Sorry for the longwindedness. I got a bit emotional reading Arclight's post and I felt like I had to get something out.][/QUOTE]
What a divinely beautiful piece of writing!
I wish I had been able to receive that level of INFJ understanding into my heart while my husband was still alive. It gives me an even deeper insight into his expression of Love. If we can embrace each other's differences instead of being frustrated by them (not always 100% possible
amazing connections take place!
scortia
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Hello, everyone. I haven't been on these forums in a few years, but I've been struggling lately, most likely because of my type. So this place is like therapy. Some of these are my own issues, some are issues I share with my INFJ students (high school teacher of Gifted and Psychology, so I do make the kids test... and of course the NFs and NTs are the ones who commonly become obsessed with Myers-Briggs.) I do find that there are differences between me and my students of my type, but then, I was an INFP while in high school myself... plus age differences are a huge factor.
1) You never feel more alone or alienated than when you are in a big group of people
Friends, family, people I don't know,... it really doesn't matter. This includes theme parks as well... though I think my general dislike of them is more about the commercialism and artificiality than the crowds.
2) You are incredibly interested in people, but it's a very limited number of people, and most people seem an annoyance more than anything.
In my own case, it's the writers/artists/musicians/philosophers that I feel a true kinship with... which makes my connections with people I'm around feel all the more weaker and superficial. There's just not the logical/emotional depth there, and even with people I've known for over a decade, I'm sometimes just playing a part because when I am more true with them from time to time I always end up disappointed.
3) Being forced to be extroverted all day causes a type of exhaustion that cannot be explained. But when you are have to be extroverted within your own realm, you are an amazingly awesome, likeable person. Being forced to be extroverted in casual, foreign situations (dear god, not small talk!) is torturous and people can smell the fear/displeasure in you.
This is pretty much my life as a teacher in a nutshell. Sorry coworkers, I don't avoid your outside-of-work functions because I hate you but because we have pretty much nothing in common, and I cannot make that work.
4) You like yourself more when you suffer and dislike yourself more when you're content.
Call it a martyr complex or the need to constantly be growing through hardship. Nosce te ipsum and all that jazz.
5) Having a job or career that serves no greater good or fulfills you personally would be your greatest regret in life.
It got me out of graphic design and into teaching... but even teaching isn't enough, I still have grandiose goals as a writer that have nothing to do with the money I'd make.
6) You would defend someone's integrity at the cost of a fortune.
I've done this at the loss of a great inheritance. I'd never change my mind about it because inherited money isn't money I earned for myself anyhow... what's the great loss in that?! The most bitter part is that the other party never learned anything from the entire ordeal.
7) Conflicts that end without the other party grasping your actual intention or one of you growing in some way are the worst ones.
See above.
8) You hate myself for being unproductive.
Guilt complexes on the one or two evenings I decide to just Netflix the evening away. Hell I feel guilty if I'm too lazy to challenge myself with a complex movie versus a tv comedy.
9) You talk yourself out of charity work because of overactive introversion and the bandage-on-a-severed-limb argument of human suffering.
...and it follows with more guilt complexes over being inadequate.
10) You cannot wrap your head around apathy, and it disgusts you sometimes worse than having an extreme viewpoint.
Guess how much apathy I see as a high school teacher? There's always more to learn and discover and take to heart!
1) You never feel more alone or alienated than when you are in a big group of people
Friends, family, people I don't know,... it really doesn't matter. This includes theme parks as well... though I think my general dislike of them is more about the commercialism and artificiality than the crowds.
2) You are incredibly interested in people, but it's a very limited number of people, and most people seem an annoyance more than anything.
In my own case, it's the writers/artists/musicians/philosophers that I feel a true kinship with... which makes my connections with people I'm around feel all the more weaker and superficial. There's just not the logical/emotional depth there, and even with people I've known for over a decade, I'm sometimes just playing a part because when I am more true with them from time to time I always end up disappointed.
3) Being forced to be extroverted all day causes a type of exhaustion that cannot be explained. But when you are have to be extroverted within your own realm, you are an amazingly awesome, likeable person. Being forced to be extroverted in casual, foreign situations (dear god, not small talk!) is torturous and people can smell the fear/displeasure in you.
This is pretty much my life as a teacher in a nutshell. Sorry coworkers, I don't avoid your outside-of-work functions because I hate you but because we have pretty much nothing in common, and I cannot make that work.
4) You like yourself more when you suffer and dislike yourself more when you're content.
Call it a martyr complex or the need to constantly be growing through hardship. Nosce te ipsum and all that jazz.
5) Having a job or career that serves no greater good or fulfills you personally would be your greatest regret in life.
It got me out of graphic design and into teaching... but even teaching isn't enough, I still have grandiose goals as a writer that have nothing to do with the money I'd make.
6) You would defend someone's integrity at the cost of a fortune.
I've done this at the loss of a great inheritance. I'd never change my mind about it because inherited money isn't money I earned for myself anyhow... what's the great loss in that?! The most bitter part is that the other party never learned anything from the entire ordeal.
7) Conflicts that end without the other party grasping your actual intention or one of you growing in some way are the worst ones.
See above.
8) You hate myself for being unproductive.
Guilt complexes on the one or two evenings I decide to just Netflix the evening away. Hell I feel guilty if I'm too lazy to challenge myself with a complex movie versus a tv comedy.
9) You talk yourself out of charity work because of overactive introversion and the bandage-on-a-severed-limb argument of human suffering.
...and it follows with more guilt complexes over being inadequate.
10) You cannot wrap your head around apathy, and it disgusts you sometimes worse than having an extreme viewpoint.
Guess how much apathy I see as a high school teacher? There's always more to learn and discover and take to heart!
unsomething
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A lot of times I feel like my brain won't be satisfied until I eat reality. There's always this palpable sensation of lacking. I can't tolerate the threat of not understanding a viewpoint or having had an experience, or knowing everything about a subject, yet I frustratingly don't allow anything to feel important to me. This has led to blatant chameleonism and posturing and a continual devaluing of the self. Constantly feeling... not misunderstood, so much as ununderstood.
How do you get the courage to live on all cylinders when it always turns into abandonment? The real me is unlikable to most people and I haven't learned to give up on being liked. I try so hard to just delete parts of me, but it doesn't ever work. I just end up featuring immature, basically invented parts instead. I become things I'm not and it's no wonder that is unsatisfying.
I just hate this, I feel like I'm living in a glass cage.
How do you get the courage to live on all cylinders when it always turns into abandonment? The real me is unlikable to most people and I haven't learned to give up on being liked. I try so hard to just delete parts of me, but it doesn't ever work. I just end up featuring immature, basically invented parts instead. I become things I'm not and it's no wonder that is unsatisfying.
I just hate this, I feel like I'm living in a glass cage.
lulabelle
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what do you guys think of this article?
i saw it on the INFJ reddit sub and it's resonating for a lot of people, apparently.
The "Other Side" of the INFJ
i saw it on the INFJ reddit sub and it's resonating for a lot of people, apparently.
The "Other Side" of the INFJ
1487610420
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lulabelle
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TIL
everyone and their daddy is on reddit.
velveteen
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yep yep yep yep yes yes yes yes
Mademoiselle
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May I ask you INFJ females, why do you turn my words into insults I don’t mean?
I swear I don’t mean anything bad.. *face palm*
I swear I don’t mean anything bad.. *face palm*
unsomething
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Anyone else realized that it's a mistake to explain yourself to other people, and learned to stick to strictly emotional connections?
How do you shut off the "kay I'll explain my thoughts to you because I'm stupid and I think it will make total sense if I just say it and you getting it will definitely bring us closer together" impulse?
Then you only either get an intensely projective agreement or a flummoxed look. (hehe, flummoxed)
How do you shut off the "kay I'll explain my thoughts to you because I'm stupid and I think it will make total sense if I just say it and you getting it will definitely bring us closer together" impulse?
Then you only either get an intensely projective agreement or a flummoxed look. (hehe, flummoxed)
Mademoiselle
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Ok if I thought something was wrong.
How to express it to an INFJ?
She’s my mother, so of course I care.
uumlau
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You DO realize that "She's my mother" outweighs "She's an INFJ" by several orders of magnitude, right?
Mademoiselle
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You DO realize that "She's my mother" outweighs "She's an INFJ" by several orders of magnitude, right?
Sorry I didn’t get it.
Use easier words.
Use easier words.
uumlau
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The fact that she is your mother is a much more helpful point for advice on how to deal with her than the fact that she is INFJ.
Mademoiselle
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Well that’s how I think of it, you may have a different opinion..
She’s mother + INFJ.
To me, she’s too emotional.
unsomething
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Do you mean if you thought she was upset about something and you want to know what you could do to help her feel better?
Well firstly don't be pushy, give her some space and time to process it.
But if she seems like she wants to talk about it, just listen honestly and be genuinely supportive. Don't offer any advice and don't criticize. She just needs to be reminded that you care, that you think she is a good person and that you are on her side. Anything that shows that you care is good.
Fe wants harmony. The less ground she has to cover to get there, the better she will feel.
oneandonly
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FOR SERIOUS
oneandonly
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Dont give her the impression that you think she's too emotional, be validating to her feelings, respectful of her authority, and try your best to feel her emotions alongside her.. you dont want to be too cold because that could make her feel very separated from you... honestly it depends on the context
Mademoiselle
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That’s true. Thank you.
I understand she’s caring even more than the emotions she shows.
She wants me to be the same, but I can’t simply get upset like her, I have cool nerves..
I know as a kid I owe my parents. So I sometimes want to act emotionally. But it’s too fake.
