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My relationship with shadow Fi

greenfairy

philosopher wood nymph
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
4,024
MBTI Type
iNfj
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
My Fi is my inner child. It tells me about my most primitive emotions and basic level of well being, but being undifferentiated it needs a lot of interpretation. Fe is its big sister. It expresses the feeling in socially appropriate ways, and talks to Ti (my adult, conscious self) so Ti can make sense of it and integrate it, then decide on a course of action. Ne is the messenger, bringing in new information about what other people do, so Fe and Ti can educate each other. Si is a little hard to describe in a role. It is a physical mirror of Fi, and a foundation. Everything Fi feels gets a physical expression, which is the language which gets interpreted by Ti. It comforts and heals, gives support and stability, and grounds in reality. It is not threatening to Ti, but very hard to understand. It senses energy, on which is an impression of the relationship of the inner self to the world. Ni often works with the other shadow functions to integrate unconscious information into conscious intuition.

Fi is associated with values, subjective feeling, conscience, right and wrong, ethics, and raw emotions. All these things are rather problematic for Ti, because they are not things which are easy to make sense of. They don't fit neatly into categories or adhere to a specific set of rules, like math or science. They are not predictable or universal, and not always consistent. They don't have a ready explanation. However, they do have their own rationality. Fi is like instinct, animal knowledge. It touches the essence of human existence where it meets the animal. Fi is pure existence.

When Fi is properly translated into intuition and Ti humbly submits, steps aside and lets Si do its job to create and maintain inner harmony, and a dialogue with Ne and Fe (supported by Te and Se and aided by Ni) results in knowledge which can be integrated into the Ti framework, wisdom and enlightenment are attained. This is the task of INTP for personal and spiritual development.

When my intuition tells me something, I always follow it. I learned when I was very young that intuition gave a picture of truth which was consistent with both thinking and feeling, and grounded in physical reality. Since feeling was not my preferred mode, I figured accessing my unconsciousness as a whole was the best course of action; intuition is the gateway to both the unconscious and the collective consciousness.

I don't see Fi as demonic; it is an animal self and a young self. It provides authenticity because your grown up self can't go too far from the younger self without some tension on the string. It provides the DNA for self creation.
 
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