INFP support

Tips and reflections on how to understand better yourself and how to live in this world

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You don’t need to be fixed

I don’t know about you, but for quite some time already, I was trying to learn about myself, my wounds and trauma they created. My goal was to fix those parts of myself that cause sabotage or that I was ashamed of. I was trying to work on them in order to become better, every day working on myself, every day hoping I am getting closer to “better me”. I saw that picture of my future self being strong, charismatic, open and trusting and having all the scars removed, so that I can be finally perfect, because otherwise why would anyone ever loved me - my darker side cannot be loved, right? False! That is so much not true!

I was doing recently that exercise where I was distancing myself from me and imaging me and an separate being from me. And I made myself seeing me not the way I usually do, so the “finally perfect version”, “better me”, but just me as I am now, with all the fucked up stories in my life, all the betrays, humiliations, disappointments, situations where I placed my trust wrongly upon someone, all the situations where I thought I have to take care of people ignoring my needs, OR not even fucking letting myself feel my needs. All those things that were making me feel like I am broken and damaged and that no sane person would ever want to deal with me if he / she knew I went through that stuff and now I am just hiding all the effects it had on me. And you know what? You know what happened when I imagined myself with all that “uglier” parts in me? I realised I am fucking awesome! I don’t want  or need to hide or fix any of those things ever again. They made me me, and I am perfect with all my imperfections, like you are with yours. We think are wounds make us broken, make us ugly, they are not! This is exactly what makes you beautiful! You are perfect with your imperfections! Don’t try to hide it otherwise people can’t see your actual, true beauty! 

I saw in me my dark humour (that I thought is “bad”), my intelligence (that I was even hiding before, wtf!), my sensitivity and how I care about living beings (which I was also reluctant to show), my aversion to conflict, my flight and fight responses, my need to understand people, the fact that I am a planner more than a doer, my existential crises every second month, my love to alternative medicine, how I treat people, my inner dialogues, me wanting to put on makeup and dressing up nicer sometimes (yes, I want to look nice, so I do makeup and it isn’t shallow), me doing masculine things, me being awkward, me intimidating with my insights. I am damn awesome.

You don’t have to FIX things in order to be better. You are perfect now with your imperfections. I want to take care of myself and make myself understand, really understand and feel, that I, with all the pretty ugly parts of myself have a total damn right to be happy in this world and this package is good to love. I am fucking lovable. So you are. You are lovable the way you are. Claim what you want, because you deserve it. I deserve it. 

It isn’t to say to not grow. It is to say to accept your imperfect parts and love them. Love them. LOVE THEM. This is what makes you beautiful. Those exact imperfections. Those wounds. We humans are so damn beautiful. Yet we still have a need to show up as someone else. And that is sad.

Love,

Ell

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In the absence of "who I am not", the experience of who we are, becomes impossible.

Neale Donald Walsch

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How sometimes we are not good at showing Love

My dad is an alcoholic. Functioning alcoholic. He daily does everything right: he prepares meals, gets things done, repairs stuff, drives a car, talks to people. But he also daily drinks. He drinks at his place. We don’t live together, I left to another city, don’t like my home town, not best memories. My mom passed away 8 years ago, so that my dad lives now alone, just that he has a friend / girlfriend. She also likes to drink. I have never had a good connection with my dad. He tends to be impulsive and talk a lot without listening out, I think he is an energy vampire, which is well, is sad, because it means, he can’t sustein himself, he needs others energy to soak in, to stay alive, it is never enough, he never feels like he has gotten enough recognition, like he is enough. So when I with my brother came back home for Christmas, he got again badly drunk, like he always does in any holidays, when we are back. He sings, yells, says weird things, wants us to drink with him. I will go and try to put him to the bed, get rid of vodka, reassure him it is all okay, but he needs to go to sleep, and he makes me feel guilty because he wants us to drink with him, and we obviously don’t. Made me feel really bad for many reasons. 

1) I would like to have normal family Christmas, something simple, having dinner, watch something together, unpack presents. But I don’t. It is not even just that I don’t have it, it is that every Christmas, or Easter time makes me anxious, because I don’t know what will happen to my dad, he calls to family members making himself look inappropriate, I try to hide his phone, and disconnect our phone, but he still always manages to call someone. So yeah, makes me feel bad, because anxious of what will happen, always unexpected, always worrying if he will be okay, about neighbours, if they are not gonna come down and make us quiet, which I can’t do.

2) Makes me feel guilty. Because I can’t stop him, I am not direct enough, I am too nice, too passive, too scared to stop it. This time, for the first time, I left home earlier, my dad was again drunk and could barely stand on his feet, was singing, I was with my brother, feeling again like a helpless child, just hoping nothing bad will happen. I decided to leave. Took my brother with me and we left to my place, to another city. My brother told our dad we are leaving, he was drunk, didn’t understand what was happening and why, he said you are drunk, we don’t want to be with you now, he said that, what are you saying, nothing bad is happening, I am not an alcoholic, I am at home. Well, we still left. Next day he called us, I could not answer. My brother did, of course dad didn’t remember we left. Made me feel guilty because I left him and something could have happened to him.

3) I prepared a present for Christmas for him, really devoted time to find something that he will finally use. Also gave him a pillow case that I myself made (he doesn’t give us anything, but that’s not even the point). I was so happy giving him that gift. I was so proud of that pillow case, because I am now learning how to sew, and that was what I managed to do myself. I tried to pack it nicely, which I even wasn’t caring much about earlier, and that gift was just on a table, he didn’t care to open it. Only today called him, asked how he is doing, asked about a gift, and he said he opened it and likes a lot and gonna read a book that I gave him.

It is difficult to leave a parent. He needs us. He always says he misses us. I think he is very troubled and sad inside, but he doesn’t even realise it. I think he loves us in a way, but doesn’t show it or say and can’t be close with us. He care a lot about practical stuff for us, like some papers thing, administrative things etc., that I don’t care much or treat only as something to be done, but I think this is how he tries to show he cares about us, and this is maybe the only thing he can do. But that doesn’t change the fact he hurts me. I don’t remember any good memory with him. In my dreams, he always appear as someone sick, who needs help, but at the same time, throwing a knife at me when being drunk (my last dream). 

Where is the boundary then? Should we sacrifice ourselves for another person? No. We shouldn’t. We should give as much as we can without being hurt ourselves. Also, now I understand I can’t expect anything from him. He isn’t reliable. These are my expectations that hurt me. He will not change. 

Do you have any thoughts on that? That will be much appreciated... I feel lost about what is the right thing to do.

Love,

Ell

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Fear?

Do what you fear. You know already this is exactly what you should do. You just for now luck the courage to be vulnerable and take a risk, you are not ready to fail. Let me tell you something, you are never going to be happy if you don’t decide to show up, if you don’t let yourself to be seen. You are worth love. You are strong, worth belonging and beautiful. Show yourself. Let others discover you. This doesn’t mean to tell everyone your darkest secrets. Vulnerability without boundaries is not actual vulnerability.

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Promise this to yourself

How many times you were feeling good and at peace with where you are and then you are seeing someone, you talk, and you are hit by the negativity, all the complaints about things that you don’t even have, and that ruins your state of blissfulness? You decide to listen someone out, you want to be a good friend, I mean, am I going to leave him now? He has so hard time now, I can’t be that heartless monster abandoning him now. Why to have a friend if not for exactly those moments? Aren’t we here to support each other? I want to give love. I want to support. I want to heal. Why then I fail and feel like hitting a wall when I talk to him and listen to all those never ending complaints? Am I not able to love? Am I not loving enough? The answer is NO. Let me tell you why.

You can’t heal someone or help someone if he doesn’t want it. You just can’t. Uh, why then does he keep talking and feeling so bad about that if he doesn’t want help? Well, people get addicted to their feelings -> their pain too, and so sometimes they are not willing to let it go like that. They prefer to stay with what is known, it is easier. You can point it out, but guess what reaction you are going to get. Exactly. Don’t force your help on others. That doesn’t mean you don’t love. You love, you are beautiful and you will be there for him, when he wants your actual help. Listen to that shit for the sake of listening? Well, leave it. Don’t do that. You are not here to collect all of that darkness coming from other people. You are here to love and heal when someone wants to be healed. What is the promise then about, you ask? Get rid of relations where you are serving someones pity party. And yes, that is a loving decision. You are not doing anything good when you are straightening someone in his destroying convictions. 

You love him, but don’t forget to love yourself. You can’t let someone destroy your peace. Of course, at some point you will feel strong enough with your peace and joy that nothing will put danger on your energy but in case you don’ feel certain enough about what and how much you can handle - don’t take that risk. Work on yourself. Wait for when he needs actual help and then try to support him. Don’t make yourself a hero, also don’t sacrifice your well being. Make this promise and cut off relationships when someone uses you to dump on you all his shit. Love yourself. I love you. 

Yours,

Ell

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Yes, I can be angry

Are you by nature a peaceful and kind person and others are drown to you because of that? Do you feel like you tend to listen more than talk? Are you in general acceptable and are able to put yourself in another persons shoes? Your friends and colleagues must be happy then to have you around! But hey, hey, hey. Are you that sweet and cute all the time? I bet you are not, nobody can. And what is more, these are INFPs who are particularly known from their soft nature who can surprise others with their anger and fierceness. 

How people react then? Do you care about what they think? I guess in a moment you don’t, I mean, inferior Te is what makes you lash out with all the assertiveness and power, when you do that, you wake up your dreaming monster, Te, Te is getting slightly mad, you know, and you, like that sweet, tiny dragon show how dangerous you can be when the Te starts to breathe fire. Oh yeah, that is spectacular. My friend is calling me Cloud in our language, because he says I can be cute and soft like a cloud in a good weather, or dangerous and ‘heavy’ like stormy clouds. Love this comparison. 

Your kindness and acceptance is not infinite and it is okay, it is okay to feel anger at times and release it. Don’t feel guilty about it. Maybe you had it, that people were surprised and would say things like: Oh, I thought you are chill and cute and all that candy like stuff, and now you show your true nature! No. Just now they know the whole nature, and that is okay. Te is there for a reason. Otherwise people would step over INFPs. Use your Te. Don’t be scared that you will overdo it. Yes, can be you have to learn how to handle it better, but that shouldn’t stop you from learning, practicing. Try to be with healthy Te users, who are also able to see your sensitivity and can appreciate it. 

You are beautiful, you are awesome, dreamy lovely person, world needs INFPs, be strong, use your Te and stand up for what you feel and what is important for you.

Love,

Ell

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You don’t have to

How many times you felt you should do something, because this is what ‘normal’ people do, and so to not be a freak, you also should join and do the thing? And then you do that, and you realize that that completely drained your energy and you don’t understand why, because others seemed satisfied, but you instead feel like you betrayed yourself because apparently did something that was totally against yourself, and what is worse, you actually had a warning, warning from your body, your gut feeling, telling you to stay true to yourself but you decided (for some reason... probably you started to think) to abandon, to ignore it and do what seemed just proper thing to do. Nice, right?

You really should don’t give a damn about what others are doing. Don’t do that if you don’t want to. Don’t betray yourself. Listen to yourself, signs your body is giving you, your feelings and beliefs. You are killing yourself when abandoning your inner self. The Spirit in you is getting drained more and more, and this is you who is making it fade away. Please, sweetheart, stop doing this! You are such an amazing person, have so much to offer, but if you are going to follow what ‘normal’ people do, or what is safe and acceptable, you will never discover it. I know, it is hard, and I am myself learning this. But please start with reading how you are feeling under what conditions and place yourself in the conditions that just taste and smell wonderful to you. Please! We are here to help the Divine evolve, and you are not doing any good honestly when you are unhappy here on Earth. 

You wanna serve your purpose? Be happy. Have joy. Have fun. Feel good. That will mean that you are fulfilling your purpose, that you are in alignment with the Divine and It can finally speak through you. 

So many people struggle with finding their purpose, doubting often if there is any purpose at all. Here I am telling you, there is a purpose. Like body cells in our body serve us to grow, we serve the Divine to evolve and expand. But don’t feel bad if you think you aren’t particularly happy person at this moment. Like we are trying to heal ourselves, our mind, body cells, the Divine is also doing that. After all, It wants to expand and without its constituents it is rather hard. Now, you are in the perfect place, it is here where you were meant to be, now you can learn and grow and become only more and more beautiful soul. 

Don’t expect environment to bring you happiness. It must come from within you. Maybe ‘peace’ is a better word. Only when you are in a state of inner peace / happiness, you can reach out outside to perpetuate this state. 

How to do that? Start with short meditations, 15 - 20 min every morning, I recommend e.g. Abraham Hicks guided meditations, you can also find her teachings on youtube on universal laws, I like her, maybe it will resonate with you. Yeah, I imagine you are soooo busy that you just can’t do exercise, because yeah so much stuff to do, so much Internet to discover etc. But find time for exercising, do swimming, yoga, jogging... Whatever you like. Mind is connected with the body. Take care of your body and your mind will get better too. Release energy imbalances that you have in your energy centers. Do breathing exercising to clean your thoughts. Do that, do that, do that. Start small. Start with meditations and exercising. 

Do what serves you = serves the Divine.

Love you,

Ell

[geyashvecova]

Design graphics Geya Shvecova (SUN_310119)

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Recognition

Be genuinely grateful to people, you really never how much that can mean to someone.

Here a bit personal. I organised something for people recently, normally I don’t do such things, but had the feeling that that’s what I want to do now and I know others need it. I was very stressed, I don’t know how to handle group of people (especially that I don’t know), and was worrying whether I will manage.

It turned out to be great, people were wonderful and they were giving me so many thanks, that now I feel so overwhelmed with positive emotions that I feel like crying, it touched me so much, I just wanted it to be not very bad, and now people are so happy and grateful. 

Never forget to be grateful to people.

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Time for “fuck this shit”

More terrible than being hurt by someone is a feeling of being hurt by yourself, is realizing that that was you who dragged those circumstances on you, the feeling that you shouldn’t have let yourself be in that situation for that long and that you shouldn’t have been trying to fight for something that isn’t even good for you. The realization that last months you spent regretting breaking something that was actually a misery and a result of your lack of self love. 

Self love is indeed the most important skill that we all should be working on and become masters of. If you love yourself truly, you will never put yourself in a situation that will hurt you for nothing. Never. We can’t control others, whether and how they are going to hurt us, but we can control ourselves and how we care about our well being, comfort and overall needs. No being deserves being treated like a shit. Don’t let it happen. 

Also stop agonizing over situations where you were not aware of what is going on, understand them, acknowledge and promise to yourself to leave old you behind. Don’t beat yourself up for how bad decisions you made. Turn it into lesson. Past is past, past happened, stop living by it, you are beautiful and absolutely amazing, fuck that past shit and move forward.

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Suffering in parallel reality

Worst that can happen to the person is not just just suffering, but suffering being surrounded by people and living in your own miserable parallel reality that seems impossible to be shared by anyone else. 

When you think that it is impossible to merge both realities, yours and others, when you cannot exist in their, yet nobody is seeing yours.

The worst that people can do then is to belittle that parallel reality of someone who is suffering, to reject this because difficult or not so pleasant to comprehend and think of.

This is with no doubt worst thing that can happen nowadays. Suffering with people who share your reality, like people after earthquakes, in poverty, hungry are still in less mental pain than a person having a decent house and job yet suffering inside, being invisible to others, being detached emotionally, not belonging, but most importantly - having their feelings invalidated when something terrible happened that you feel like your heart is physically, literally broken, you can feel physical pain, you can’t breath normally, you are empty yet your body is letting you know something is happening. Not being able to explain what is happening, not being able to join other happy people, that difference is too big. 

I have been there.

But you know what, like with everything, there is a way out. You just have to get your feelings and reality validated and acknowledged. No, it is not about forgetting and acting as if nothing happened. It is having someone to join in, to see it and share.

Yes, it is kind of hard, like I said, problem is actually that nobody is seeing that, nobody cares, nobody seems to be able to understand, and maybe they are not.

I feel like this might be more a problem for Ni or Fi intuitive dominant types for some reason, INFJ, INTJ, INFP.

You have to go then to a therapist, yes, I know some will not be a good match for you, don’t get discouraged, search for who is appropriate till you find him. But the right one will validate your feelings, will understand you and join. He will also show you another perspective, help you understand what is happening and why, will show you the way to recovery. Therapy is not magic, right, don’t expect that after 1h session you will come back healed. No, no, no, far from that. It is like school. You get some lectures, teachers are showing materials, but at the end this is you who does the homework and studies hard to get results.

Your obligation is to fight for yourself and to not give up, to express to the world how amazing human being yo are, everyone came here for a reason, you too.

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Why do we cheat

Nobody is perfect, nobody is without a sin, everyone sometimes lies or cheats.

We lie either because we want to manipulate the situation, someone or because we are scared. We do that for convenience or some even for fun. 

If you manipulate, you don’t respect, Fe child functions may do that, ENTP, ESTP.

If for convenience, you are not strong, confident enough to express something, sometimes INFJ can do that or ENFJ, high Fe and mostly Ni.

I don’t support any of those cases, it happens though I am lying when I don’t want to admit something, this is a sign of weakness, that I want to face,

Why do we cheat? Cheating is similar to lying, we don’t respect the process so we want to find a shortcut, process is troublesome so we need to make it more convenient. If we respected the process, found it necessary, we would go through it, even though it is difficult. INFP will not go through something that doesn’t bring any value, if forced to, INFP might want to cheat. Same for ENFP.

What does it mean then if someone is lied to or people cheat during the process?

We all are by nature the same, we are Oneness and we don’t cheat for the sake of cheating, we don’t lie just to lie. We have our reasons why we do that. Reasons may be wrong objectively, but for the person is all right to do that, it is justified. There might be little voices in your head suggesting something is off, but you will be able to brush them aside finding logical explanation why you have no choice but have to do that, why that makes sense to you. You do that, you feel better, you put to sleep your conscience. 

Okay, let’s go back then to the question. What about people who are lied to or process isn’t followed properly?

Someone doesn’t want to tell you the truth, doesn’t feel it is safe, doesn’t feel you will respond well, someone doesn’t feel comfortable with you and sharing what bothers him, what he needs. It doesn’t have to be your fault but it might be, so consider why someone didn’t want to tell you the truth, the problem is often at both sides, so don’t just feel bad, think also about what you did wrong.

Maybe your demands are too high, maybe you don’t respect boundaries, maybe your wishes seem just stupid to someone, maybe you don’t take criticism well, maybe you are overly sensitive, judgmental, maybe you don’t listen to others and create useless but complicated processes, maybe you are too narrow minded.

Change yourself and the others will change their attitude towards you.

Respect yourself, so that others will respect you and you will not be manipulated.

Be genuine and express yourself.

[just-bellerose]

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love this.

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INFP workaholic

Yes, you can find INFP who is an actual workaholic and overachiever in something but who also doesn’t even care much about but still identifies with. This comes from having Te that is insecure, triggered by something, having it threatened. This can happen in childhood, having self worth somehow lessened and now feeling the need to be respected, well educated, best at something. INFP will want to have everything under his control and will be very stressed when he cannot fix things even independent on him, because after all, that Te thing is linked to Fi identity and values. I am describing here an unhealthy INFP of course, so don’t think please that it some general theory about this type. 

So, is it bad to achieve things? Absolutely not! It is an aspiration of a healthy INFP to achieve something huge and important in life, to contribute to something good, to help others with their vision and knowledge, give them love and light. But this is exactly the point. INFP has to achieve and overachieve maybe (!) having in mind intention coming from Fi, and not from fear of being inferior at work and thus inferior in general, (Te linked with Fi, which is INFP first, most important function).

Healthy way for INFP is to go with functions as the order goes, Fi, Ne, Si and then build up a healthy Te goal and achieve it based on what Ne concepts / new things that Fi valued were experienced / learnt in past with gathered knowledge Si. Te is inspirational and healthy when it comes from heart, experience and gathered knowledge. It becomes unhealthy when INFP skips the Ne, Si and goes to Te hoping to make Fi happy with himself and feel better.

Every time when INFP chooses a new career, he has of course a goal, desire to be good at it, and it is right, let’s call it subgoal, this shouldn’t be linked though, my dear INFP, to your identity, Fi. Remember, this is just a process when you learn. You go for new Ne, you learn new things and gather experience Si. This is awesome! These are pieces that will help you identify your bigger goal, Te, that you want to achieve, rules that you will set for world, vision that you will design and will be implemented. You have to learn before how world operates, so don’t get discouraged and don’t feel bad when first Te subgoals are not perfectly achieved. These are just subgoals and are meant to gain experience and learn about the objective world. Remember, learn how the world REALLY is, learn Te, this you can do with your subgoals. 

I really wouldn’t like you to stick to illusions and reject Te. We are scared of Te, we don’t like it, but this is the key to success. Small subgoals Te first, they teach how world looks like, we move to another Ne and learn more Si, we start to make sense of how world really is Te and can create a real goal for us, what is achievable and important for us.

Go, my beautiful INFPs, be strong and don’t get discouraged. 

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When we disappoint

We so often talk about how others disappoint us, and how things are not the way we imagined them to be. I was describing already what might happen to us when experiencing constant disappointment, that our ego might be replaced with superego, our identity fades away. But what with the feeling when this is us who disappoints?

I think high intuitive feelers, either Fe or Fi, struggle with that most in general. Fe case is more obvious, let’s say, because Fe is focused on taking care of others and people say Fi is focus on himself, what a bullshit. I think Fi can be even in more trouble when it comes to feeling of disappoint someone, depends what is the reason, what were the expectations etc., but high Fi user doesn’t want to disappoint if that equals hurt, because he knows exactly how that feels, INFP will know what rejected / disappointed person will feel, because INFP is able to mirror those feelings. So, INFP hurting someone with heavy disappointment will feel inside what the other person (might) feels (which is kind of subjective anyway, but that is a talk for another time). How can INFP then cause that? I mean, it is like hurting yourself, right? Mirroring others emotions is good and bad, as you can see. You can be empathetic and understanding and in general a good listener but that can also cause that you let others exploit you a bit or that you keep their company even though it is not good for you. 

What to do then? How to deal with situations when someone makes hopes, expects something and you know you can’t give that or you don’t want to?

Mirroring is still useful then, INFP knows how to say something so that others will not feel that bad but often INFP is scared of true, scared of what people will think Te, so INFP would be passive and not say maybe anything at all, which is easy solution but only for INFP. The other person is confused, wants information, but INFP doesn’t want to say the truth. 

Being able to handle it is a great example of a good balance Fi Te. INFP fights his insecurities, Te, and says with respect and directly the truth. 

Overcoming Te insecurity in INFP (and ISFP) is what makes them bold at the end and so they can avoid being hurt, at least in some regards.

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Shadow side: to avoid or not

Yep this is true that it is much easier to be in touch with our ego, we see (relatively) easily what we are insecure about, what we are aspiring to, what we feel absolutely confident at etc. Some people will say that if they know that, if they mastered their consciousness, it is enough. It is kind of silly though to think that way. I mean, it is actually very important to get to know something that you don’t have control over, something that you are defenseless against, something that occasionally makes you do stupid things that you regret than what you control already well. You screw up things often (either with you or other people, things) because you are not anymore in touch with your ego and now something strange is happening with you and you don’t even know what that is, but that wants you to do something that you normally don’t do. It is primitive and spontaneous, it is basically the opposite to who you are in a healthy state. So you want to tell me it is useless to know your enemy? It is like going for a war and knowing nothing about the other side, I mean, seriously? And with you, you know, it is like war that you are in the whole life. You have battles, smaller and larger, your mind makes you do things you don’t really want when you lose the battle. 

Nobody is just good or bad. Everyone has his dark side. So you rather suppress that and pretend you are all that awesome human being and then unintentionally hurt yourself and others or learn about it by any chance to tame it?

I talked earlier about superego for INFPs, so you can have a look how that side looks for them, now I want to talk about shadow side.

Shadow is a gateway to wisdom. You want to be just happy? Well, go for it, but you will always miss something, some meaning, something deeper about you. You have to have low moments to appreciate the good ones otherwise you just exist and consume, that is just amazing. It is to say, do not escape from your shadow, face it. So for INFPs that will be ENFJs, so functions in the same order but the directions are opposite now. Yeah I know that is pretty hard for an INFP to be ENFJ, usually we are in shadow when our hero function is threatened, we don’t feel secure, it is like a back up. For ENTP that will be INTJ, ENFP - INFJ etc. So let’s take ENTP as an example. ENTP doesn’t have basically Fi, doesn’t mean ENTP doesn’t have feelings? No. It means they are not in touch with their feelings and basically ENTPs don’t know humane nature and sensitivity, and it is easy for them to offend someone unintentionally. ENTPs don’t really want to hurt others, they just use their Fe (+Ne) playfully and they enjoy it so much (child function) and it is so innocent, that sometimes that just gets out of control, but they don’t even see it, only later they realize someone got offended. So, ENTP will be coming up with new things (Ne + Ti) but if they are getting into their dark place, say, something from external world triggered that, they might start to question their Ne and its usability. I mean, how really spontaneous I want to be and where that leads me. ENTPs see endless possibilities, but what if they are getting hurt over and over again, say in romantic relationships? ENTPs can be very lovely people with their Ne + Fe, they understand others needs, they like to please people with their innocent Fe,  and yeah of course they want people to be interesting and not dumb - Te critic. Point is, at some point they will try to switch from Ne to Ni, Ni as a rescuing function, and they become for a moment INTJ, they are in the shadow. What is that then. It means that they will try to project what will happen to them and how they are going to feel about it (Ni + Fi) so that they are not getting hurt in future. Many ENTPs use their shadow pretty well. This is because they can snap out of it pretty easily if they have good people around, childlike Fe again. Shadow is a shadow still, it is not meant to replace your ego. It is to help ego. If you master you shadow, you are walking with an armor now instead naked and silly. 

You can also think of it as of fool’s journey in tarot, so first you are a fool, you care only about what is easy and funny and you are basically super optimistic because nothing bad happened to you. Then you go through life, things happen and you realize you need an armor, so you befriend your shadow side. That kind of sucks when you get stuck with your shadow, of course, shadow is to be tamed and protect you while keeping your corps - ego. 

I so much love Bojack Horseman that I have to refer to him now. He is ENTP. And yeah, some would say he is INTJ, but this is when we can see his shadow. He so much wants to get something working, like INTJ, is so focused on that one thing (actor) which is Ni now and not Ne, he wants to be an actor and this is how he identifies himself now. He doesn’t have many interests, he wants to be an actor. He got there through inferior Si, so much wanting to be back in past. That made him stressed. It was all good earlier, now everything sucks and I want back what I had, kinda thing. So what is the problem with Bojack? I just watched 2 seasons so far but it looks like he needs to be in his shadow more and dig into himself, meaning of life, his Ni and Fi, to get to know himself better. That will be painful, like we see sometimes Bojack crying when realizing some truth about himself, but that is the way to start loving and accepting himself, and finally setting up some strategy on how to get what he wants, working on Si and routine to leave something in this world after himself. Is that really acting that he should be doing? What that will give him really (Ni, Fi) and why he wants that? Is it the right direction?

Same is with romantic relationships. I want to give so much, I want to please so much, be all that funny and charming but if ENTP gets wiser he will also think, am I going to get hurt? Is it long term thing? What will happen to me when that will end? So that ENTPs chooses partners more carefully. 

So yeah, if you want to go through life naked and without any armor, don’t embrace your shadow. If you want to become wiser and stronger and also have protection of your crazy ego, then befriend your shadow side. At first you will not enjoy it, I mean, it is shadow after all, but you have to tame it.

Okay, that is it for now. Be wise and not silly, sweeties.

[infpsupport]

INFP, grief & conservation of energy

This is about the grief after the beloved one. I know we cannot really classify intensity of emotions based on the MBTI personality type, like there are gene(s) responsible for our predisposition to overreacting / being oversensitive, which means thinker can be very well very sensitive and reactive even though makes decision based on thinking. So we should be very careful with our judgments, you have no idea what others have gone through, what traumas they have, why they are the way they are, don’t criticize for over sensitivity or apathy. People who don’t express much are usually the ones who were actually hurt in childhood and were in a stressful environment and as a cope mechanism had to suppress their feelings and identity to some extent, and yes that worked in that moment but later in life that causes problems, rises questions like who am I actually, what I like, what I want to do? So to all feelers here, and by feelers I mean the ones using Fi and not Ti, so also XXTJs, don’t judge and understand that for some love and creativity can be in place via learning, understanding and designing using Ti, for others that can be creating and feeling with Fi, both will come from different places, both are equally important.

That was kind of ‘by the way’ remark, but that irks me how XXFPs sometimes, even though described as empathetic and understanding, understand little actually. Yes, such cases exist, it is not that Fi user will talk to someone and think he is better, he can easily love and Ti user cannot, but they sometimes criticize or try to pull out something out of a Ti user. For example, if you get to an INTP heart and his Fi and then hurt him, that is much more heart breaking than for INFP. I mean, for INFP that still will be hero function, INFP wants to love, for INTP Fi is a devil function, you mess up with this and you leave INTP completely devastated because he was so scared to love in first place, he decided to trust Fi and see what that is, to abandon his hero Ti thinking, it is like a different character now, and what happened, he got hurt. So what is he gonna do? Of course, will go back to Ti and probably next time will be even more careful with love.

Grief. Feelers, as being better in touch with their feelings, will suffer more in general and longer. Ti user will accept what happened easier, Fi will be awaken then but Ti will take over at some point because that is a hero anyway and Ti understands well he cannot do anything about it. And out of all Fi users, Fi + Si will be going through the process of grief most badly as Si doesn’t want to let go, and wants to stick to what was earlier, tries to rebuild the feeling, to find homey place, comfort, safety. I understand that everyone suffers, but you know, some people just suffer more, and this is just the way it is. There are also other factors and ways of seeing it of course, but Si function in the stuck says, hey I want to be loyal and I want my past experience, but what to do if the beloved one is gone? It is hard to let it go and move on.

What some of you maybe don’t realize is that, that person is not really gone. And no, I don’t refer here to any beliefs, to any religion or any other subjective reasons. You probably heard somewhere that we are made of stars, the way you understood that was probably that that was about the matter, but you also know that the matter within an atom is actually a very small part, it is 0.00001% and the rest is energy. Energy, as from the first law of thermodynamics, doesn’t disappear, doesn’t die, just can change its state, which happens after death of a body and we also know from Einstein’s famous equation that energy and matter exist together, E = mc^2, c - speed of light. What does that mean? Our energy will always be in space, till the very end of the time. It is not consciousnesses, nope, I talk about energy whose purpose, similarly like the purpose of matter, will be reused, just that in a different way. Light of your beloved one is never extinguished, is still here. And you know what else? The Universe is itself a close system, but we are open systems which exchange energy with other systems. Yes, you get it right, that means, you still in a way interact with that Light, your energies can interact. Isn’t that beautiful? So you also don’t be scared of death, you will not be gone, you will be still here, just in a different form. Isn’t that funny how some can laugh at reincarnation whereas it turns out that the reused energy, the Light that changes its form can somehow fit in this theory?

Universe is a beautiful system, beautiful body, we are like cells inside this body, we are Oneness, nothing disappears here.