INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“A somewhat strident message about why I write: If you think that money will protect you from potential pain and suffering, you are misguided. Money will certainly oil the wheels and give you a more comfortable ride but, when it comes to loss, pain, and suffering—when that hits, money will not get you out of it. Beauty fades, youth grows older, things change, success is relative. Love? Do you really know what that is? Have you gone beyond your own ego to find out? Do you know how many old people are fading away in geriatric homes, institutions, or stuck in some isolated little apartment somewhere? In this society, they are marginalised. They are out, finished. They are you/me/us some time down the line. If you are poor, who will value you? In this society, you count for almost nothing. If you are sick, or weak, or disabled in some way, will you be treated with respect, empathy, or dignity? And the religious institutions, the governments, the power brokers, the corporations, the media. Do they care? Are they compassionate? Are they humane, decent? We have our heads in the sand. I write to communicate what I truly feel. The outrage, the disappointment, the frustration, the sadness, the confusion. And I wonder—am I the only one who feels this way? Apparently not.” —Annie Lennox

Continue reading…

“Traditional Healers are either born with their gifts or have spent much time developing their gifts. Every tribe has some form of traditional healing for their people. The concept behind Native American healing is much different than Western medicine. Native Americans looked at the person as a whole and treated the individual’s entire person instead of focusing on just the illness or ailment. As many of you know, Native Americans believe that everything is interconnected—nature, plants, animals, the Earth, sky and so on. Many Native Americans believe that everything has a spirit. If a person had an illness it was thought to be due in part to a spiritual problem.” more…

“The Hawaiians look at things in terms of energy flow, following the idea that an idea or belief can block energy flow as much as muscle tension can. Lomilomi helps release the blockages, whilst at the same time giving the energy new direction. Thus Lomilomi is not just a physical experience, it also facilitates healing on the mental, emotional and spiritual levels as well. The Hawaiians view all aspects of the body as one and believe that the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual are all part of the ‘whole’ self. When healing occurs on one level, it impacts on all levels. Rather than viewing the client as someone to ‘be fixed,’ a Lomilomi practitioner views each person as a being to be assisted in returning to harmony and balance. It is important to remember that the practitioner does not heal but is the facilitator for the healing, creating a safe place for the healing to occur.” more…

INFPs (Healer Idealists) are found in only one percent of the general population though, at times, their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity.*

Empaths
This Gift With People
The Power of Intuition
Society’s Canaries
Stand Up and Show Your Soul

“If the healer is the one who heals us all, who heals the healer?”

The Listeners
Cancer Survivor Learns How to Say “No”
Speak Your Mind, Even if Your Voice Shakes
Empaths
The Black Sheep/Going Against the Grain
The Monastic Option
Loneliness
How I Healed Myself
Innerspace
Healing the Healer
Caring for Unmet Needs
Are You Mature?

“Several years ago, I was fortunate to meet a lady named Deborah at a fasting clinic in northern California. I had several conversations with Deborah over the course of a year, and what I remember most about her is that her kindness was amazingly genuine; the feeling for me was that she had spent a lifetime enduring great sadness and suffering, and had done much inner work to identify and strive to live according to her ideals.

“One day, I asked Deborah why she chose to eat her meals alone rather than with other fasting guests. After a beat of silence, she told me that she was getting some negative vibes from another guest, and that she felt that it was best for her resting experience to stay away from that energy. I remember her using the word ‘toxic’ to describe the other guest’s energy—not in a malicious way, but with a thoughtful and observational tone.”

“I’ve learned that to keep my sensitivities open and not get demolished by a world full of negative energy, I need to protect my energy. That’s why I got interested—because I have no desire to shut myself off or to become numb or neutral. I want to stay open to the world, but I also had to learn to protect my energy.”

Forgetting to be Human
by Dick Staub

We have forgotten what it means to be human; the evidence abounds. Read the paper, weep, resist, pray, and then live a fully human life. Blessed with extraordinary spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral and relational potential, we squander our greatness on lesser pursuits and wonder why we feel restless and empty.

While globally 30,000 children die daily due to malnutrition and preventable diseases, children in the West spend hours in elaborate, addictive “interactive virtual reality” games. Unaware of a sense of mission and meaning in real life, they turn to a vacuous wasteland of mind numbing entertainments and “not-pretty” diversions.

In the political arena, spin obfuscates reality and candidates spend billions of dollars to get elected so they can acquire or hang onto power, which is then wielded on behalf of large faceless special interest groups. In religion, the marketing machine produces converts attracted to religious celebrities who are generally workaholics unavailable to their families—saving the world and losing their own souls.

Whether in Hollywood, politics, or religion the story is the same—a young person with passion and vision, unable to discern purity of motive from a raw, naked desire for power or notoriety and fame, enters the fray. Early successes fuel the quest—trade-offs must be made. Must be at this meeting or that, must sacrifice this daughter’s soccer game, son’s piano recital, anniversary dinner with the spouse. The noble cause trumps the noble life until the choices become a way of life and then there is no life worth living.

Dulling the pain requires stimulants, entertainments, diversions, sensations—“let me feel” is our cry. The pure feelings produced by love, family, friends, neighbors, or a walk on a sunny day or in a light rain are displaced by cheap, imitative, virtual or “extreme” experiences. Spiritual humans become sensate humans enslaved to our substandard lives, needing to pay the mortgage, unable to disentangle from the consumerist webs. The mighty fall—evangelicals being no exception.

One day a trumpet heard by the entire planet will sound, but we’ve waited 2,000 years and we are fools to believe that that day will be the beginning of the promised abundant life. In the now, we who know listen for and hear the music today. We dance a different dance—we are the resistance, we are summoned to be the creators, we see the truth and say it. We are called to be fully human.

Fully human, we embody the words penned by British poet Arthur O’ Shaughnessy:

We are the music makers.
We are the dreamers of dreams.
We are the movers and shakers.
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

“Contrary to popular belief, giftedness is not characterized by high intelligence alone…”*

“On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, INFP is a rare personality type, found in only about 4% of the general population. Yet, of the possible 16 types, it is the one most frequently found for gifted people. This scarcity, coupled with their extreme intelligence, renders them seldom understood and, thus, rarely validated in relationships. The following material is based on qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with eight highly-gifted INFP adults.

Continue reading “INFP Personality Type in Gifted People”

Characteristics of Gifted Adults
Giftedness Self-Test

Giftedness: There appears to be three sorts of childhoods and three sorts of adult social adaptations. The first of these may be called “the committed strategy.” These individuals were born into upper middle-class families with gifted and well-educated parents and often with gifted siblings. They sometimes even had famous relatives. They attended prestigious colleges, became doctors, lawyers, professors, or joined some other prestigious occupation, and have friends with similar histories. They are the optimally-adjusted. They are also the ones most likely to disbelieve that the exceptionally-gifted can have serious adjustment problems.

The second kind of social adaptation may be called “the marginal strategy.” These individuals were typically born into a lower socio-economic class without gifted parents, gifted siblings, or gifted friends. Often, they did not go to college at all but, instead, went right to work immediately after high school, or even before. And, although they may superficially appear to have made a good adjustment to their work and friends, neither work nor friends can completely engage their attention. They hunger for more intellectual challenge and more real companionship than their social environment can supply. So they resort to leading a double life. They compartmentalize their life into a public sphere and a private sphere. In public, they go through the motions of fulfilling their social roles, whatever they are, but, in private, they pursue goals of their own. They are often omnivorous readers and sometimes unusually expert amateurs in specialized subjects. The “double life strategy” might even be called the genius ploy, as many geniuses in history have worked at menial tasks in order to free themselves for more important work. Socrates, you will remember was a stone mason, Spinoza was a lens grinder, and even Jesus was a carpenter. The exceptionally-gifted adult who works as a parking lot attendant while creating new mathematics has adopted an honored way of life and deserves respect for his courage, not criticism for failing to live up to his abilities. Those conformists who adopt the committed strategy may be pillars of their community and make the world go around but, historically, those with truly original minds have more often adopted the double life tactic. They are ones among the gifted who are most likely to make the world go forward.

And finally there are “the dropouts.” These sometimes bizarre individuals were often born into families in which one or more of the parents were not only exceptionally gifted but exceptionally maladjusted themselves. This is the worst possible social environment that a gifted child can be thrust into. His parents, often driven by egocentric ambitions of their own, may use him to gratify their own needs for accomplishment. He is, to all intents and purposes, not a living human being to them, but a performing animal, or even an experiment. That is what happened to Sidis, and may be the explanation for all those gifted who “burn out” as he did.

Source: TPS

“On the whole, people don’t tell you to ‘lighten up’ because they’re concerned for your emotional well-being. They do it because they are uncomfortable with your feelings and because they don’t really want to go where you are.

“Because we all really only know what it’s like inside our own heads, it can take a while to figure out how you are different from other people. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I am, to a larger degree than normal, serious, passionate, imaginative and emotionally intense. Why is this something I’ve been shamed for?”

Continue reading “I Don’t Lighten Up”

“Ever since I was a tiny girl, I’ve been the kind of person who feels joy so intensely that it hurts. I would lie in bed, age 6, and press my hand down on my heart when I was really really happy because it felt like my heart would come out of my chest. When I’ve been in love with someone, that’s what it feels like.

“I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“If I can’t love someone like that, if I have to ‘tone it down’ in order to get a mate, then obviously love is not for me. Because I can’t. I can’t tone it down. I have the presence of mind to know that that very intensity is really the best thing about me, and if I have a gift to give? It is THAT. And I can’t compartmentalize it - although I have tried that too.”

Continue reading “Me and Salieri”

“The way toward wholeness is made of wrong turns and fateful detours.” —Carl Jung

“People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.” —Ramona L. Anderson

“I know the potential of my depth scares most people because for many years it terrified me. I would shop, sleep, drink, use drugs, travel, work, eat, jog, flirt, go to bars, dance, have sex, go to school, have hobbies, read books, get married, have a child, quit work, fast…anything just to avoid getting to know my inner self.

[…]

“Until recently, I have always attracted myself to superficial people—an obvious mirror reflection of myself at the time. Because the power within myself scared me, I allowed myself to choose external distractions while avoiding getting to know my internal self.

[…]

“This is just one of the many reasons I chose to become a writer. To sit down and discuss subjects like this with others face-to-face is draining on both of us. Writing allows enough food for thought to others and myself without becoming a hefty tax on the energy supplies and provides a safe, non-threatening forum whereby the reader can put the message down at any time and return to it when he or she is ready. Writing puts boundaries on our fears and acts as a protective barrier against mental, emotional, physical and spiritual stress.”

Continue reading…

Here’s what I hear:

* sensitive—“must be gay” (am not)
* nice person/genuine
* opinionated but fair-minded (tolerant)
* thinks too much
* not focused
* can get into head trips
* literal learner/thinker (meaning you have to spell it out if it starts getting too abstract like chemistry)
* always late
* stares into space
* not good at understanding other’s motives (am a sucker for what looks like honest emotion and am manipulated this way)
* has a sense of wonder
* great moderator
* brown-noser
* petty
* he’s a good guy
* have a hard time asking for what’s mine

I’m an INFP adoptee. Talk about confusing trying to learn who you are. Adopted parents test as ENFJ and INFJ. Birthparents, I believe, are INFP (bmom) and INTP (bfather), but with a lot of childhood damage that was never fixed so they’re a bit strange to me. With my adopted parents, I felt like I was raised in bootcamp, “Hut, hut, hut!” Those J’s are tyrannical. Along with the T’s.

Someone else mentioned it wasn’t okay to be themselves in their family. This was me, also. I became an ENTJ to be okay growing up. Didn’t have a clue who I was until late my 20’s. Thank God I waited until 40 to get married. I would’ve been divorced twice by now.

Was popular in high school. Was the one popular person who also identified with the outcasts. Seemed to find what everyone had in common and built on that.

Started work in Corporate America. Got fired—was too honest when the blame bottle spinned on me. Honesty is NOT the best policy in the working world. Lesson learned.

Can relate to the guy who talked about team sports being somewhat of a struggle. The team-bonding thing is so much easier if you’re an extroverted non-sensitive man.

I dated many women. I always found that they liked me and said what a great father I would be. But did this matter to them? In large part, no. They still married—or got excited about—the alpha, non-emotional, screw-them-in-business, have-an-affair-but-you-get-a-big-lifesyle guys.

I listen to some of them complain about their husbands now but I don’t feel sorry for them. They wanted that. This led me to learn to change the people I hung out with. I agree with someone who said “find people who appreciate you for you.” That’s a great demonstration of good self-esteem and one that took me until 40 to learn.

My wife is also an INFP. It’s not easy being married to someone who’s like you in terms of sexual chemistry. I find the sexual attraction thing more with other personality types—the women T’s and J’s. But, this I learned, had more to do with my associating intimacy with rejection (or someone not getting me).

The sparks weren’t as bright with my wife at first but, man, we are friends through everything. I think that’s the healthier way to go.

Definitely not what you’d see on Oprah. Forget what our culture says about you “just knowing.” It’s bull crap coffee table stuff. I know people who’ve said that and gotten divorced a few years later. Essentially, they married their opposites and it didn’t last. The gulf was too wide. Either that or their marriages didn’t resemble anything more than lifestyle/economic arrangements.

I would say heaven and earth are themes for me—trying to balance the practical with the spiritual. Oh, how I envy those who are comfortable not asking the big questions! Sometimes, I wish I could just go on with my life like they do and work, accumulate, then die—without ever having to get my brain messy. Instead, I’m absorbed with “what did that mean?” over and over.

Still I wouldn’t trade my INFP status. I think the rest of the population needs us to bring things from unreality into reality. We are that bridge. To my way of thinking, it makes them all drones.

I found a way to make money in a niche advertising business where I’m my own boss. I don’t have to dress up, impress a boss, show up for meetings on time or kiss anyone’s ass. I recommend this if you can find it. I think INFPs are sort of scapegoated in groups at work.

Peace to you all.

Related: Male INFPs/HSPs (2)

“I think modern society—especially in the United States—has a set of biases that make it difficult for sensitive men to learn about, and come to terms with, their sensitivity. Apart from those who simply ignore the possibility that they might be a HSM, I think there are also significant numbers who may be aware of their sensitivity, but are hesitant or afraid that anyone else might find out. Sadly, I get the sense that most HS men live lives of quiet suffering—many choosing to ‘narcoticize’ the pain of not fitting in with alcohol, drugs, or other addictions. Maybe you’re an HSM, reading these words. And maybe you’ll recognize yourself, somewhere in all this. In retrospect, I can now look at many ‘choice points’ in my life where my being a HSM had an influence on the…”

Continue reading “Highly-Sensitive Men: The Hidden HSPs?”

“I joke that I knew James before he was sensitive,” Danny Kortchmar chuckles affectionately, “but the truth is that James is the archetypal singer-songwriter. He’s the mould, as a solo artist backed by a consistent touring band, writing confessional songs before almost anybody—songs that remained personal even as they became universal. Dylan achieved the universal aspect, but not the personal vulnerability.

“Working and touring with James for decades, I used to want him to rock out more—until I realized that what he wanted to do was actually calm people in a unique, quirky way. His songs sound like the blues, like Christmas carols, and like a church choir too, yet it all essentially comes only from him.”

“Fundamentally,” Ike Taylor told this writer in 1981, “James is a retiring person who wants and is able to be in meaningful contact with other people. At the one-on-one level, his shyness interferes. Paradoxically, that shyness disappears on-stage. I see family allusions in much of his work and a core confidence in the rightness of exposing his inner self. ‘Fire And Rain,’ for instance, was a great expression of his sensitivity but also of his will.”

[…]

“My son ministers through his music,” says Trudy Taylor. “He picks up the themes of what’s good in the past, and he gives them a unified clarity in the present.”

Source

“For me, I don’t have much direction or control over it. I don’t write or read music. But, generally speaking, I am visited by songs. They usually happen to me either while I’m sitting and playing guitar or sometimes when I’m driving the car. ‘Sweet Baby James’ happened while I was driving down south. You have to be ready to catch those things when they come, you know, ‘cause they’ll just fall right through and you’ll forget them. I write lots of songs that I guess you could call remedial, that are sort of therapeutic. Sometimes, I feel uncomfortable with that, as though they are too sticky and sentimental; but that’s what I do, that’s the kind of song I write.” —James Taylor

“People always feel compelled to sum you up, to presume that they have you and can describe you. But there are many stories inside of me and a lot I want to achieve outside of one flat note.” —H. Ledger

“I’m shy. People get confused. They think, as an actor you can get up and be confident on the screen. Why aren’t you like this in normal life? Why can’t you act in your social life? Because I can’t!” —H. Ledger

“Sometimes I think of us as society’s canaries. I expect you all remember the stories of what happened in the mines in the 19th century. The little canary was taken down the mines in a cage. If the air was putrid (the system stunk), the little bird would die and this would be a warning sign for the miners to get out. Sometimes we, too, take on the attributes of the canary. We are likely to feel bad air perhaps before anyone else has even noticed that the windows are shut. We are likely to get sick and, sometimes, this can be on behalf of so-called normal people. I like to describe us in a positive way by indicating that we are the exquisitely sensitive ones. If you listen to us you may learn something about the air…” —Merinda Epstein

“MBTI types INFP and INFJ are the predominant types in the HSP community…”*