ni – INFJ Ramblings

INFJ Mental Disorders, Health & Emotional Sensitivity

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 04:27:34 +0000

As some of you might have noticed there has yet again been radio silence on this blog for the last months. I’ve been busy on an exciting project overseas so have not been able to do any posts here like I would have liked to. I will probably be busy another month or two but I have still been collecting material for you guys so as soon as I’m done I will be back flooding this blog with new posts. Meanwhile I thought I’ll do a short one adding on some observations and thoughts that’s been lingering in the back of my head during these months.

I want to talk a bit about INFJs and mental health, something that seem to be a quite popular and reacquiring subject out there. Unfortunately mental health is somewhat a struggle for many INFJs and there are many misconceptions concerning it. Misconceptions in the regard that INFJs would in some way be weaker on a mentally and emotionally level and that would be why many struggle with anxiety and depression. It is true that we are more sensitive then other personalities but that doesn’t necessary equal anything along the lines of weakness. It has been shown that INxx types in general are the ones that often struggle with emotional sensitivity. I would say that a heightened emotional sensitivity is as much a strength as it can make life harder at times. You are merely playing on a completely different playing field then less emotionally evolved people. Being more sensitive to emotions equals a greater understanding and perception of them. It is easy for other people to call you unstable or emotional when they themselves cannot perceive the situation at hand. We all view life through different lenses, but INFJs can often view life throughout multiple lenses, free from conditioning or influence. Being this type of empathic people with often divided personalities is what makes it hard in comparison with others. Yet there is nothing wrong with us or our mental health, simply the fault lies in the rest of the worlds comparison of us with themselves.

The nature of intuition is in not trusting how things appear even thought answers may be laid out in front of you. Always searching for alternative possibilities, clues or hints of the true nature of things. It is no wonder why INFJs can easily feel that they are losing their grip when as an introverted intuitive dominant, your are always changing and endlessly searching for meaning within yourself and the rest of the world. This is what intuition is meant to do, and in there lies much of the problem when it comes to mental health issues. You can ask yourself the question that if you no longer trust what you can see and feel with your own senses, does that mean you are mentally ill? An unhealthy version of this would be somebody who is schizophrenic. Yet there are similarities here like being able to view the world unattached from presumptions of how things are and should be. In other words, viewing it free from previous experiences, like you would view it for the very first time. In order for INFJs to draw those incredible conclusions about the nature of things this is what is needed on a mental level. So it is not hard to understand that always operating in this type of functionality comes with certain drawbacks. Like when we get stressed or pressured we can even stop trusting ourselves and our own existence.

How do you handle your thoughts and emotions when they seem even more real then the things happening in the world around you? Here is where our inferior function comes in, and the reason we have this fetish for extroverted sensing is because without it we would lose ourselves completely. It is the counter weight to our intuition which keeps it from tipping off the scale, which is what can happen when we get stressed. The scale can also be tipped in favor of the inferior function under stress, and we start to judge ourselves and who we are from our results in the outside world. This is very much the complete opposite of who we really are as INFJs. Negative life experiences often reinforces negative self value, and this is what happens with INFJs that operate to much in their inferior function. You start to forget who you are and your own value. You forget one of the most special things that you have as an INFJ which is emotional health, morals and values which are pure and unaffected by the external world. Because we all know that you cannot change the opinion of an INFJ, and you cannot force us to believe in anything we don’t.

To wrap this all up I want to share some tips concerning emotional health. If you often struggle with anxiety, negative self thoughts and fears, it is important to remember one thing. You are not your thoughts. The brain is an organ like any other in the body. The heart pumps blood, the stomach digest food and the brain creates thoughts. It is it’s sole function and you cannot stop it from happening. What you can do on the other hand is understand this process and that just because the thoughts are there and pass by in your mind, doesn’t mean they are true.

To master your emotions you need to master your mind. The key to this is mindfulness practise. Here is a book I highly recommend to get started with mindfulness:

The post INFJ Mental Disorders, Health & Emotional Sensitivity appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

Developing the INFJ Brain: Neuroplasticity and the INFJ Mind

Sat, 05 Oct 2013 22:43:00 +0000

The last couple of months I’ve been using this online brain training tool called Lumosity. It’s a scientifically proven tool to help develop cognitive functions in the brain in order to function with different tasks better. It’s developed with the help of research in areas of neuroscience and neuroplasticity, that the brain will adapt to the daily tasks it faces. With daily training in different brain areas you can develop and improve them but also counteract effects on the brain from aging.

http://www.lumosity.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

The cool thing is that the brain statistics Lumosity outputs after training are split in the different development areas of the brain. My best score is on Attention where I am almost above 90% of the rest of the population. I find it interesting since attention has to do with Se which is our inferior function as INFJs. I believe that the reason I have such a high attention score is because as an INFJ and HSP, I do not have a filter to separate sensory stimuli. I just take everything in and my Ni sorts it and shows me selected things on a conscious level. We are actually more conscious of our surroundings then we think because all the rest of the sensory data is still there subconsciously. Ready to be grasped by our Ni when needed. An example is a game on Luminosity where you have to quickly spot a bird somewhere on the screen and simultaneously read a letter in the center of the screen. All in a couple of milliseconds. Sometimes it was so fast it was hard to see, but somehow I still manage to select the correct letter and spot where the bird was. All because that sensory information is not filtered like most people. I think this is why we often have a tendency to be HSP individuals which are easily affected by strong sounds, lights, smells and easily get emotionally overwhelmed.

I can recommend Lumosity and it’s all a highly interesting subject. Lumosity has been proven to work to increase short term working memory, math and help develop attention in people with brain damage or mental disorders like ADHD. Worth to note is that there is no proof that training some of the other brain games on Lumosity could help improve performance in unrelated tasks. It would be interesting to see if there will be any articles and research done on MBTI in correlation to neuroscience and how the brain works in different types.

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INFJ Functions: Introverted Intuition, Observation and Ni

Thu, 15 Aug 2013 07:53:00 +0000

As an INFJ having an inferior Se function and lacking a Si function, I always felt like INFJs see the world through a different set of eyes then other people. Most people are largely dependent on their senses and observe the world in detail through their vision, smell, touch and hearing. They take in all the sensory details about their surroundings and are quick with observing changes. Intuitive’s and especially Ni dominants take in their surroundings in a different matter. We see the external in it’s whole, it feeds our intuition with sensory data which sort out the hidden meanings and details than can be hidden from the normal senses. Our inferior Se function feeds our Ni information and often we are not conscious of everything we see because our Ni sorts out the important parts in an unconscious process.

The perk of our Ni is that it gives us unique insights from our senses in connecting the dots between what is going on in front off us and behind the scenes. We might be slow in analyzing what is going on in our environment consciously, but we see things for what they really are and not only how they appear to us. This is the beauty of Ni, which is why it can be very hard to lie or trick an Ni dominant personality since we look past what our senses tells us and connect to the core of things.

Taking in all of this information can be exhausting and because we operate in such a fashion always, we might need more alone time then other types of introverted personalities. This unique way of analyzing the external is why INFJs can be such good psychologists or artists. Not only do we have the power to emphatically see things from the same angle as other people, we can also see it from angles others cannot. Ni is the reason why symbolism appeal to us so much. Symbols are something that can appear in one way but mean something entirely different, which is basically how our Ni operates in understanding things from our senses.

Many times in my life I’ve been suggested to have psychic abilities when I have been able to predict actions of people or what they feel about things. For example being in a bar I can always tell who is interested in who, if a guy is trying to hit on a girl and will succeed or not. Just recently a friend of mine made a bet with me that his friend was going home with this girl from the bar. He was hitting on her the whole evening and they where talking and kissing. I did not know any off them that well. I told him that she would not go home with him, my intuition was telling me that something was off. They left the bar together and my friend was convinced that he had won the bet. About 30 minutes later she came back to the bar alone and joined us again, getting a last drink and calling a cab. The guy left alone.

This kind of observations comes naturally to me but when it is concerning how I act myself, it is much harder. I think the reason we can be so expressive with emotions and what we think sometimes (our Fe, extroverted feeling function), is to balance up our nature of understandings others. We understanding others but others not understanding us is not a very balanced nature of being. We naturally don’t like lying or not acting genuine and we have a knack for sensing when others do this. To me this feels like observing a clear evolutionary pattern that nature have evolved in us INFJs, which shows that all our functions are there for a reason and to reinforce our way of functioning with other beings.

The post INFJ Functions: Introverted Intuition, Observation and Ni appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

INFJ anxiety and stress

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Sadly enough, it turns out the most popular posts on this blog is the ones that are about anxiety and INFJs. I know this is a big part of being this personality type so I thought I’ll do another post about it and try to summarize my experiences further.

(At the bottom of the post I have also put together an INFJ survival kit of the best products to improve your life)

I’m a INFJ and a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), if you are not familiar with HSPs you should Google it. Basically it’s a well researched classification for people with unusually sensitive nervous systems, and because of this they struggle with feelings or sensory stimuli. We feel things on a higher scale then others. Looking at statistics HSPs are common among INFJs and INFPs, but they do occur among most personality types to certain degrees. I experience this heightened sensitivity in both my feelings and senses. It is pretty understandable since as an INFJ I am both a feeler and also have dominant and inferior perceiving functions. Se (extroverted sensing), is our inferior function and this is a highly unconscious function together with our dominant Ni (introverted intuition). They operate mostly together in our subconscious and Se fuels our primary Ni with external information.

Our Se basically acts as a balance to our highly intuitive state of functioning which makes us very perceptive of our external environments and other people. This can be both a gift and a curse for INFJs since we take in so much information it can be hard to filter it at times and we can get overloaded. Since our dominant perceiving function is introverted it also gets even more focused and turned inward compared to people with an extroverted equivalent. The problem with introverted intuition as dominant is that since it is introverted we might tend to internalize feelings even without being aware of it.

I’ve been battling anxiety and stress on a daily basis for most of my life and a lot of it tend to come from being highly sensitive and intuitive. I even had full blown panic attacks or mania in the past when it is at it’s worst. Usually my state of being in general influence the magnitude of negative feelings, my anxiety grows worse if there is something bothering me in my life. What helps is dealing with things as soon as you can, because if you let them sit there and bother you in the back of your mind they will make everything worse.

To much sensory stimuli can also lead to anxiety for me. High uncontrollable sounds, flashing and intense lights and imagery, busy environments, big groups of people and having expectations put on you tend to trigger these feelings the most. Basically things that connects to our senses and feelings which are not possible to control. I get agitated and nervous, can’t concentrate my thoughts on what is going on and can even feel physically ill. It becomes a downward spiral which side tracks my mood and can bring on other feelings of anxiety completely unrelated to the first cause. For example, an noisy environment can trigger stress which sets off bodily sensations making me feel like something is wrong or I’m sick. Usually when I calm down or the trigger stops I can realize that it’s false feelings, but during it feels like being caught in a grip. You can’t tell if it’s real or not because your usual state of functioning is suppressed. Many describe it as INFJs living in a constant state of disembodiment, we are more connected to our mind then the physical.

Being very perceptive to things makes you want to be able to control these external perceptions. The problem is most other people do not operate in a Ni state of being which makes it all much more difficult for others to relate to. People disturb you with noise or insist on talking to you when you are busy which makes you unable to focus on anything. To many people talking at the same time makes it hard to separate the words. Hard to sleep with background noise or insomnia from to much stimulation. Being among a noisy crowd of commuters in a train without AC can be a real nightmare, draining your energy quickly when your Ni and Se is trying to make sense of all the sensory stimulation. Since we are introverted by nature we tend to consciously focus in on one thing at a time, multitasking and following what’s going on everywhere around you can be exhausting. When you can’t keep up with everything it easily creates stress and anxiety.

Another source of anxiety for me is feelings of perfectionism and high expectations in the self and the external world. It can be that the creative vision you imagined in your mind for your painting, does not appear in the one you created in real life. That you try to express your feelings or self to a person but words don’t suffice in real life, making it reflect what you meant poorly. Or when you have to impress someone, present yourself or your work and you idealize the perfect outcome for it but in real life you can’t seem to pull it off like you imagined. It all has a lot to do with self esteem and expectations our Ni put on our self which we in turn fail to accomplish. Then by being introverted feelers we intensify these feelings inward making us unable to escape and cope with them easily. We can always imagine the true ideal and who we want to be, but we can never achieve it because when we do there will always be something else we want, the next step. We are future oriented and this is what drives our ideals also. Needless to say life as an INFJ is not easy and it’s understandable why others might consider us moody, melancholic and intense at times.

It is important to understand as an INFJ that your feelings sometimes tend to go over the top and to realize when this happens. That it is something temporary and it happens for a reason, it’s your fight or flight response. Your body and mind is telling you that you need to slow down a bit in order to enjoy yourself. Don’t let it consume you because nothing bad will happen feeling anxiety, it is just a feeling and will pass eventually. You will never defeat it since it is in part who you are but you can learn to live with it.

As INFJs living in a western and modern society I think we are unlucky, today’s society is not very adapted for us. It favors everything that we are not and will try to mold us into just that. It is important to remember that we should not try to change our own behaviors because of this. I spent a decade of my life trying to change myself into someone I’m not, to be more extroverted, sensing and thinking as a male since this is how society tells us to be to fit it. Those years of trying didn’t bring me any closer to happiness. I just felt depressed and even more alienated from the world. I the end I came to the conclusion that you have to be yourself and find ways to cope in life instead, treating yourself and your body better. This in turn will improve your life greatly as an INFJ. Since we have no Si (introverted sensing) function in our stack I think we are one of the personalities to benefit the most from a healthy lifestyle. It grounds us and connects us to our bodies better. Feeling detached from my body and the world have been very common for me and also made me question my sanity at points in my life. Exercise have greatly improved these feelings and the overall anxiety I experience.

If you still have not come to terms with the aspect of being an INFJ, I suggest you take a step back and see what you can do to improve your everyday life to better suit you. Even if it means changing your job, relationships or where you live I promise you it’s worth it. Being an INFJ is not easy but there is no point in making it any harder then it already is.

To give you a head start on ways to improve your life as an INFJ, I’ve put together the INFJ survival kit. The following are products that I use almost daily and that helped change my life:

Rhodiola Rosea, supplement. This is an adaptogenic herb that helps manage healthy mood and stress response. The most natural and safe anti depressant that can be used daily, long term. Even people who are not depressed can use this to boost their mood levels.

L-Theanine, supplement. Theanine is the amino acid in tea that is responsible for the relaxing effect that tea has on the mind and body. In isolated form Theanine is one of the safest and natural anti anxiety treatments there is. It is so safe that no toxic dosage has been able to be established, meaning you can probably take as much as you can fit in your stomach and it still would not hurt you. Yet, at only 100mg dosage it relaxes you without making you tired and improves cognition and mood. This is my favourite supplement and I highly recommend it to everyone no matter how healthy you are. Modern life is full of stress and this is the best antidote I have found.

Pelter Optime Noise Reduction Earmuff. If you have issues with high noise levels at work or home these are ideal to wear while also look like normal music headphones. Great for relaxing in noisy environments and also great for meditation wherever you might be.

Zafu Yoga Meditation Cushion. Meditation can be a difficult habit to build but is one of the greatest things there is to build mental power and emotional stability. I found that investing in a proper cushion and making it a ritual using it greatly improvement my motivation to stick with meditation as a daily habit. Meditation is free but humans don’t tend to value things that are free as highly. Spending some money on this cushion might just be the push you need to stick to a daily meditation habit.

Calm – Meditate, Sleep, Relax. This is a great and FREE app to use when starting out in meditation. Meditation can be a confusing thing for people who never tried it and never experienced relaxing in that way before. This app helps!

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. This is THE book on the subject of introverts. Filled with useful information, research and tips to help introverts and non introverts understand what this trait is all about. If you are an INFJ this is key for you to reach new heights in your life.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. This book is one of my all time favourite books about life style design. When it comes to INFJs and many INxx types we are often not happy and fulfilled in traditional office or alike job positions. We strive for something more. This book will empower you to find your own path in life and create the life you want to life. Can’t recommend this one enough!

The post INFJ anxiety and stress appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

INFJ Anxiety Under Stress and Depression

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Sadly enough, it turns out the most popular posts on this blog is the ones that are about INFJ anxiety under stress and depression. INFJ under stress often leads to regular anxiety and if prolonged, also depression. INFJ depression can be more intense and this is the case for all feeler type personalities. I know anxiety is common and can be a big part of being this personality type so I thought I’ll do another post about it and try to summarize my experiences further.

At the bottom of this post I have also put together an INFJ survival kit of some of the best products to overcome anxiety, stress and depression for good.

Looking at statistics HSPs are common among INFJs and INFPs, but they do occur among most personality types to certain degrees. I experience this heightened sensitivity in both my feelings and senses. It is pretty understandable since as an INFJ I am both a feeler and also have dominant and inferior perceiving functions.

Se (extroverted sensing), is our inferior function and this is a highly unconscious function together with our dominant Ni (introverted intuition). They operate mostly together in our subconscious and Se fuels our primary Ni with external information.

INFJ Under Stress

Since our dominant perceiving function is introverted it also gets even more focused and turned inward compared to people with an extroverted equivalent. The problem with introverted intuition as dominant is that since it is introverted we might tend to internalize feelings even without being aware of it.

Usually my state of being in general influence the magnitude of negative feelings, my INFJ anxiety grows worse if there is something bothering me in my life. What helps is dealing with things as soon as you can, because if you let them sit there and bother you in the back of your mind they will make everything worse.

INFJ Anxiety

I get agitated and nervous, can’t concentrate my thoughts on what is going on and can even feel physically ill. It becomes a downward spiral which side tracks my mood and can bring on other feelings of anxiety completely unrelated to the first cause.

For example, an noisy environment can trigger stress which sets off bodily sensations making me feel like something is wrong or I’m sick. Usually when I calm down or the trigger stops I can realize that it’s false feelings, but during it feels like being caught in a grip.

You can’t tell if it’s real or not because your usual state of functioning is suppressed. Many describe it as INFJs living in a constant state of disembodiment, we are more connected to our mind then the physical.

Perception Under Stress

People disturb you with noise or insist on talking to you when you are busy which makes you unable to focus on anything. To many people talking at the same time makes it hard to separate the words. Hard to sleep with background noise or insomnia from to much stimulation.

Being among a noisy crowd of commuters in a train without AC can be a real nightmare, draining your energy quickly when your Ni and Se is trying to make sense of all the sensory stimulation.

Since we are introverted by nature we tend to consciously focus in on one thing at a time, multitasking and following what’s going on everywhere around you can be exhausting. When you can’t keep up with everything it easily creates stress and anxiety.

Expectations Can Trigger Depression

That you try to express your feelings or self to a person but words don’t suffice in real life, making it reflect what you meant poorly. Or when you have to impress someone, present yourself or your work and you idealize the perfect outcome for it but in real life you can’t seem to pull it off like you imagined.

It all has a lot to do with self esteem and expectations our Ni put on our self which we in turn fail to accomplish. Then by being introverted feelers we intensify these feelings inward making us unable to escape and cope with them easily.

We can always imagine the true ideal and who we want to be, but we can never achieve it because when we do there will always be something else we want, the next step. We are future oriented and this is what drives our ideals also.

Needless to say life as an INFJ is not easy and it’s understandable why others might consider us moody, melancholic and intense at times.

Your body and mind is telling you that you need to slow down a bit in order to enjoy yourself. Don’t let it consume you because nothing bad will happen feeling anxiety, it is just a feeling and will pass eventually. You will never defeat it since it is in part who you are but you can learn to live with it.

INFJ Depression

I spent a decade of my life trying to change myself into someone I’m not, to be more extroverted, sensing and thinking as a male since this is how society tells us to be to fit it. Those years of trying didn’t bring me any closer to happiness. I just felt depressed and even more alienated from the world.

I came to the conclusion in the end that you have to be yourself and find ways to cope in life instead, treating yourself and your body better. This in turn will improve your life greatly as an INFJ.

Since we have no Si (introverted sensing) function in our stack I think we are one of the personalities to benefit the most from a healthy lifestyle. It grounds us and connects us to our bodies better. Feeling detached from my body and the world have been very common for me and also made me question my sanity at points in my life. Exercise have greatly improved these feelings and the overall anxiety I experience.

Conclusion

Being an INFJ is not easy but there is no point in making it any harder then it already is.

Read more about how to beat depression easy in our other article.

To give you a head start on ways to improve your INFJ depression, anxiety and when under stress, I’ve put together the following INFJ survival kit.

These are products that I use almost daily and that helped change and shape my life as an INFJ for the better:

Rhodiola Rosea, supplement – This is an adaptogenic herb that helps manage healthy mood and stress response. The most natural and safe anti depressant that can be used daily, long term. Even people who are not depressed can use this to boost their mood levels.

L-Theanine, supplement – Theanine is the amino acid in tea that is responsible for the relaxing effect that tea has on the mind and body. In isolated form Theanine is one of the safest and natural anti anxiety treatments there is.

It is so safe that no toxic dosage has been able to be established, meaning you can probably take as much as you can fit in your stomach and it still would not hurt you. Yet, at only 100mg dosage it relaxes you without making you tired and improves cognition and mood.

This is my favourite supplement and I highly recommend it to everyone no matter how healthy you are. Modern life is full of stress and this is the best antidote I have found.

Pelter Optime Noise Reduction Earmuff – If you have issues with high noise levels at work or home these are ideal to wear while also look like normal music headphones. Great for relaxing in noisy environments and also great for meditation wherever you might be.

Zafu Yoga Meditation Cushion – Meditation can be a difficult habit to build but is one of the greatest things there is to build mental power and emotional stability. I found that investing in a proper cushion and making it a ritual using it greatly improvement my motivation to stick with meditation as a daily habit. Meditation is free but humans don’t tend to value things that are free as highly. Spending some money on this cushion might just be the push you need to stick to a daily meditation habit.

Calm – Meditate, Sleep, Relax – This is a great and FREE app to use when starting out in meditation. Meditation can be a confusing thing for people who never tried it and never experienced relaxing in that way before. This app helps!

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – This is THE book on the subject of introverts. Filled with useful information, research and tips to help introverts and non introverts understand what this trait is all about. If you are an INFJ this is key for you to reach new heights in your life.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – This book is one of my all time favourite books about life style design. When it comes to INFJs and many INxx types we are often not happy and fulfilled in traditional office or alike job positions. We strive for something more. This book will empower you to find your own path in life and create the life you want to life. Can’t recommend this one enough!

The post INFJ Anxiety Under Stress and Depression appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

INFJ Characteristics: Idealist, Morals and Hardships in Life

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 11:51:00 +0000

Been reading a bunch of INFJ articles lately and it sparked some thoughts about our idealistic tendencies and implementing our intuitive ideals in our external physical world. In other means the constant struggle we have between Ni and our inferior function Se. I can relate to this in my line of work since I work with digital arts for a living. I often get a feeling or image in my mind of how I envision the result to be, or how it should be in order to get the result I want (Ni). However, the real challenge comes in actually creating it in real life (Se).

Often the outcome in the real world does not meet up to the envisioned ideal or moral in our mind, it’s not enough and this is where the pressure point for our intuition and inferior function lies. Where we create our stress. This is the source of our perfectionist tendencies, INFJs have the ability to envision a perfect ideal that is not possible to reach in the real world where things are chaotic and much the opposite of what we want. We gain many of our talents from this since we somehow are able to see these solutions that are not based on anything we previously know in the real world. They just appear to us out of the the blue. One theory could be that this has to do with the connection of opposites and our talent of jumping from A to D without having to pass by B and C.

This is where the internal power struggle lies and the part of us which we should all strive to understand better in order to live a life free from stress and anxieties. We create these ideals for everything in our lives. Like how we should behave in situations, how things should play out , how our relationships should be, what job we should have or how we should feel about things. When these ideals turn out the opposite of what we envision them to be we can feel unhappy, full of disappointment and regret. One might even argue the question of what is the point of there existing INFJs and having this ability if our morals and visions can never be actualized in real life.

I think that even though this might bring us much unhappiness in our lives this is how we are meant to be and we should not strive for being something we are not if we ever want to feel good about ourselves. This is our driving force which pushes us forward in our lives and let’s us see and feel things others simply cannot. We need to follow our hearts in this and when things does not turn out how we wished them to, we have to remember that this is how life is. The important part is trusting yourself and staying true to what you think and feel about things, even when life tries to tell you otherwise. Intuition is our key.

The post INFJ Characteristics: Idealist, Morals and Hardships in Life appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

INFJ Personality Traits: Dr INFJ and ESTP, aka Hyde

Thu, 18 Jul 2013 20:19:00 +0000

It been awhile since my last post, time apparently flies as they say. I’ve been busy working but now have quite a bit of vacation coming up. Hopefully I will find the time to post more often now.

Last couple of months have been quite stressful for me in many ways, both work and stuff that has been going on with people in my family that are suffering from depression ongoing cancer treatments. During this time I have come to know parts of my personality more then I had before. People talk about the inferior function taking hold and shadow functions become apparent. When I’m stressed and on the border of breaking I turn into something that is quite the opposite of who I really am. I tend to become more hyper, less in touch with my feelings and more impulsive. I overindulge, go on binges and then regret it later because it does not add up to the ideal that I have of myself. Something on the lines of my inferior Se fighting my dominant Ni function for power. A good example of this is when I’m in the grip of stress and had a bit to much to drink. I really go off my rails and become a very extroverted and sensation seeking person. Quite the opposite of my usual self I become somewhat of an ESTP.

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Among other personality types I have not experienced this behavior like I see in myself. At least not to the extent of becoming the complete opposite. I even had a friend comment on my behavior with surprise and at times I can even feel a bit split personality. Complex and layered to a degree that I still surprise myself with my own behavior sometimes. The nature of it makes perfect sense of course since this is merely my ego compensating the very introverted and intuitive being I usually am, trying to find balance. Like how humans often want the complete opposite of what they have. Brunettes want blonde hair, short people want to be tall, very tall people want to be shorter etc. Another great example is that I am always attracted to extroverts more then introverts, since I am an introvert myself. I guess this is the minds natural response or survival instinct, finding balance to keep yourself not ending up to far down one path.

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