INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“I know we are a strange bunch of travelers. We use words like love, hope, tenderness and open. People think we’re weird. And there are many, many, gasping fish-out-of-water moments. Oh, the audacity of authenticity. You’re going to confuse, piss-off and terrify lots of people…” 

Continue reading “Oh, the Audacity of Authenticity”

“All my life I had been looking for something and, everywhere I turned, someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers, too—though they were often self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone—except myself—questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time, and much painful boomeranging of my expectations, to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.” —Ralph Ellison

“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be because, sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose—and then where are you?” —Fanny Brice

“Ninety percent of the world’s woes comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.” —Sydney J. Harris

When Carl Jung, the great psychoanalyst, went to Taos, New Mexico in 1925, he met the chief of the native people, Ochwiay Biano. Biano told Jung that, according to his people, the whites were “mad”—uneasy, restless, always wanting something.

Jung asked why he thought they were mad and the chief replied that it was because they thought with their heads—a sure sign of mental illness among his tribe. Jung asked how he thought and Biano pointed to his heart. The response plunged Jung into a deep introspection that enabled him to see his race from outside himself and realize how much of its character was within him:

“I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augustine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne’s most glorious forced conversions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies.

“With a secret stab I realized the hollowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then followed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them.

“It was enough. What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face—the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry—a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.” —C. G. Jung

Ever since I read this fascinating excerpt I have been pondering over the difference between heart-thinking and head-thinking.

Continue reading “Heart-Thinking vs Head-Thinking”

“What can you do about your own personality? After all, you are who you are. Carl Jung said that we are born with a ‘true personality type’ and stuck with it for life. Whether that’s so or not, a personality is a raw thing and therefore a ‘work in progress.’ What we do with it is up to us and will determine the direction and success of our life because our personality largely determines our attitude.

“Regardless of what we start with, over our lifetime our personality can remain immature and become atrophied, or it can mature and grow to reach its potential. Let me give you a simple example. An immature extrovert will continue to use his/her behavioural preferences to elevate her/himself at the expense of others—often by putting others down. On the other hand, a mature extrovert will endeavour to build others up and allow them space to grow and develop, to the advantage of all.

“Similarly, an immature introvert will seek to withdraw, to hide and will become self-absorbed. Conversely, the mature introvert will usually seek to include others and to use his/her own introspection to help others become more self-analytical. Whether extrovert or introvert, the mature personality develops positive attitudes which encompass those around them.” —Adam Le Good

A person may be chronologically-mature, but emotionally-immature. A person may also be intellectually-mature, but emotionally-immature. There is no correlation between chronological age, intellectual age, social age, or emotional age. Just because someone is “grown-up” by chronological age doesn’t mean they are “grown-up” emotionally.

Chronological-maturity and intellectual-maturity combined with emotional-immaturity is not uncommon—and potentially dangerous. A person whose body and mind is adult, but whose emotional development is that of a child can wreak havoc in the lives of others as well as himself.

Your relationships are dependent upon your total emotional development. The best way to understand your relationships is to understand yourself. A relationship is only as well-adjusted as the two participants. The single most important task for any person wishing to improve his relationships is to increase his self-esteem and emotional maturity. To determine the level of your emotional maturity, compare your behavior to the symptoms of emotional immaturity and the characteristics of emotional maturity.

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“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.

The Awakening:
By Sonny Carroll

I actually began writing this piece in 1996, shortly after coming out of a long drawn-out and painful breakup. I was a total mess. My life was in shambles and as I tried to make some sense of what had happened, and why, I began to write “The Awakening.” This piece is a compilation of all the lessons I learned and the observations I made about myself, about other people and their relationships, and of the wisdom that my most dear friend has shared with me over countless cups of tea.

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“Yes, I can spew. Yes, I can rant. Yes, I can rave. Yes, I can go out of my way to articulate in shimmering, twinkling, glittery, diamond-clear detail the story of what’s going wrong. But I don’t want to do it the old way.”

Continue reading “Truth Rant”

“Maybe I was hoping for a little insight, maybe I was hoping to gain some lacking spirituality or sense of good will. Mostly, though, I think I was looking for some hope. The older I become—the more news I watch, the more books I read, and the more I look around—I see the world falling apart. People are angry, scared, hurt. There are wars going on, violent crimes being committed; people are feeling a sense of sadness and desperation that you can almost feel in the air.”

Continue reading “A Lesson on Happiness”

“Concern should drive us into action, not into depression.” —Pythagoras

“Why was my dad’s funeral the saddest day of my life? When I gave everybody the opportunity to say something about my dad at his funeral, nobody said a word. I was too numb to think of anything to say. I was shocked that none of his ten brothers and sisters—or his mom—said a word.”

Continue reading “How Will People Remember You?”

“And the television executives told me when I was in Baltimore that I was just—too much. I was too big and I was too black. They told me that I was too engaged, that I was too emotional. I was too much for the news so they put me on a talk show one day just to run out my contract. And that was the beginning of my story. So, I say, even when things are difficult, be grateful. Honor your calling, don’t worry about how successful you will be. Don’t worry about it. Focus on how significant you can be in service and the success will take care of itself. And always take a stand for yourself. Your values—you—are defined by what you stand for. Your integrity is not for sale.”*

The universe is always trying to get your attention. Sometimes it starts out—any major problem you encounter—as a whisper. By the time it gets to be a storm, you’ve had a pebble knock you upside the head; you’ve had a brick; you’ve had a brick wall; you’ve had a house fall down. And, before you know it, you are in the eye of the storm.

But, long before you are in the eye of the storm, you’ve had many warnings, like little clues. So now my goal in life is not to have to hit the eye of the storm, but to catch it in the whisper. To get it the first time. I think the thing, the one thing that has allowed me to certainly achieve both material success and spiritual success, is the ability to listen to my instinct. I call it my inner voice. It doesn’t matter what you call it—nature, instinct, higher power. It’s the ability to understand the difference between what your heart is saying and what your head is saying.

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“Who am I? It matters not that you know who I am; it is of little importance. This clay garment is one of a pilgrim journeying in the name of peace. It is what you cannot see that is so very important.” —Peace Pilgrim

From 1953 to 1981, a silver haired woman calling herself only “Peace Pilgrim” walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace.

“When I started out, my hair had started to turn to silver. My friends thought I was crazy. There was not one word of encouragement from them. They thought I would surely kill myself, walking all over. But that didn’t bother me. I just went ahead and did what I had to do. They didn’t know that with inner peace I felt plugged into the source of universal energy, which never runs out. There was much pressure to compromise my beliefs, but I would not be dissuaded. Lovingly, I informed my well-meaning friends of the existence of two widely divergent paths in life and of the free will within all to make their choice. There is a well-worn road which is pleasing to the senses and gratifies worldly desires, but leads to nowhere. And there is the less traveled path, which requires purifications and relinquishments, but results in untold blessings.”

Continue reading “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, Peace Pilgrim Website

Old souls have a universal perspective. They are not so much involved in family issues like Child souls, or tribal issues like Juvenile souls, or national issues like Young souls, or global issues like Mature souls. Old souls see the cosmic picture. Old souls see themselves and others as parts of a larger system—another Synthesis Process perception. Their attention is on the workings of this system. They see how all parts of the system relate to each other rather than getting lost in the petty details. The depth of wisdom of Old souls shows in their eyes. They have a direct, penetrating stare—it looks right through you, seeming to know. Profound issues are their concern, not the trivial. In their efficiency, they want to get right to the heart of the matter and skip all the superficialities.

When old souls “party,” they usually sit around and just talk. In dating situations, they do not need to go anywhere (like to a movie) or do anything (like play games) as a means to developing social intimacy. If the basis for psychological intimacy is not quickly apparent to the old soul, he will not put himself through much trouble to develop it. It is difficult for old souls to weld unions with people that they have not been together with in numerous past lifetimes.

Continue reading “The Old Soul Age”

Are You Lonesome Tonight?
By Vinita Dawra Nangia, India Times

If you are an intelligent people observer, you would have noticed two kinds of loners. Those who wear their loneliness comfortably. At ease with themselves, their gaze is steady and introspective. Friendly if someone approaches them, they aren’t unduly perturbed if left to their own devices.

Then there are those extremely uncomfortable with their loner status. They are awkward if someone talks to them, and more so when ignored. Bad social manners yes, but beyond that, you can figure these are lonely people who haven’t learnt to be comfortable with their aloneness.

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