AphroditeGoneAwry
failure to thrive
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2009
- Messages
- 5,585
- MBTI Type
- INfj
- Enneagram
- 451
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
Sure, different strokes...
I'm not religious at all but I am spiritual in the sense of wondering about something larger than the confines of human experience and understanding.
I didn't come to this through a religious source or a self-help book.
I felt a real gap in the way I was experiencing the world around me. I'm not sure if ENFPs, driven as we are by our Ne, would necessarily find it easier to live in the moment. The possibilities always seem so much more pressing and exciting. Driven by impulse, as we are, isn't the same as living in the present.
I don't want to lose the connection with Ne either - those myriad possibilities are still an essential part of who I am. I also don't want to look back at my life and feel like I missed it while I was planning it.
An example is, on this last vacation in a fabulous new country, I was sitting at lunch with a very close friend and travel companion, planning our next vacation and had at least 5 possible countries I wanted to visit and she had her own list. It was so much fun talking about those possibilities. At the same time, I realized I just wanted to just soak in and enjoy where I was. Once I realized that, I started to notice and experience more fully how wonderful the food was and the sheer beauty of the place...I think I felt connected to the stereotypical ENFP romantic vision of life at that moment.
I've realized that a good balance is always having the next trip planned but when I'm on a trip or having dinner with someone or even a telephone conversation, I'm concentrating on just that. Sometimes it's just allowing physical sensations to take over. Getting in touch with Se is very satisfying. I feel a real difference when I can do that. That feeling that takes over for brief moments at a time that everything is right with the world...that's happiness for me.
i know what you mean. in thinking about it more, i guess i like to catch up and plan ahead, then i can relax in the moment. but i can't just relax in the moment until i'm sort-of organized in the past and the future. some people can just live in the moment and let things fall into place. that's not really me, but i admire it. i think it's more the p types that can do this.