The role of the inner parent is to be there to support your personal development journey. This part of you – your auxiliary or co-pilot process – is the key to living a happy and meaningful life; this is the part of you that will help you bring forth your inner wisdom and your purpose path.
Personal Genius
Your inner parent is the bridge between your healing journey and the reality you want for yourself. Your inner parent is also the “home” you have always been yearning for but have not been able to find. Without your inner parent’s mature guidance, you will go from one relationship, personal development programme, or career to another always looking for the answers that you already have within.
Powerlessness is rampant in the world, but what people don’t realise is that they have the power to choose their own destiny. If you choose not to develop your inner parent, you choose not to develop your sense of inner power. The choice is yours.
Your inner parent’s level of maturity will also dictate your ability to help guide your inner child to healing. And since your inner child has at least two specific ways of being and expressing themselves (tertiary and inferior function or the 10-year-old and the 3-year-old of the car model), having maturity and flexibility in your inner parenting style become necessary; this will allow you to engage fully in your life and actualize into the person you were born to be.
I want to challenge you to start taking your co-pilot (auxiliary) function seriously, and make a commitment to developing it’s healthy aspects over any other part of you right now. Committing to developing your co-pilot will make the rest of your healing journey easier and less time and self-consuming. Instead of allowing your co-pilot to run your inner parenting in an immature, destructive way, by choosing to strengthen your co-pilot process you claim the authentic part of you and begin to access your real gifts.
Here is what the different processes look like with a healthy and unhealthy expression:
Type INFJ |
Driver (Adult self) |
Co-Pilot
(Inner Parent) |
10-year old
(Inner child) |
3-year old
(Inner child) |
| Perspectives | Harmony | Accuracy | Sensation | |
| Healthy | Can see everyone’s point of view. | Can make decisions that are a win for everyone, starting with self. | Naturally inspires the elevation of standards for self and others | Inclusive sense of humor and playfulness. Allows them to feel completely free in life. |
| Unhealthy | Obsesses about what people are doing wrong, and what the consequences of those things will be. | People pleasing; has no boundaries; readily hands over the reins to others for decision-making and ends up self-sacrificing. | Constant criticism about what is wrong, and what is not good enough; this usually starts with self and spreads to other people. | Unwillingness to engage with anything other than what will make them feel free. Can become addicted to substance, intimacy, attention. |
| Common ways to resolve unhealthy issues | Be more prepared, try to mellow anxiety down with substance/medication. | Tolerate people who walk all over them until the only thing left is the INFJ door slam. | To do lists, setting goals, getting obsessed with being organized. | Indulge in addictions and then beat themselves up for not being good enough to do better. Makes an unrealistic commitment to do better in the future, and does, until the pressure is too much and falls back into the pattern. |
| Try this instead |
Learn to embrace your imperfect perspectives by seeing that every “flaw” has value. Choose a supportive attitude through pattern interrupt and then self-parenting with “Harmony.” |
Train your inner parent to identify your needs and then vocalize them. Learn to set boundaries before issues become too much to bear. Learn to trust some people and lean on them when you need help. |
Learn to use Harmony as a decision-making process, instead of leaning on your “Accuracy” too much. Remember, while you can give a 10-year-old a job, you would not ask them to run your adult life and make grown-up decisions. |
Give your 3-year-old a creative project, which your inner parent (Harmony) is managing. What this looks like in practice is learning to have creative conversations with your 3-year-old, so that they turn to self-parenting for soothing, instead of addictions. |
Type INFP |
Driver
(Adult self) |
Co-Pilot
(Inner Parent) |
10-year old
(Inner child) |
3-year old
(Inner child) |
| Authenticity | Exploration | Memory | Effectiveness | |
| Healthy | Visionary, stable, self-sustainable driving force that has a high level of respect for self and others. Acknowledges the sovereignty of self and others. | Is open to new learnings and explores new possibilities readily. Patient and kind, expressive and inclusive. | Embraces the safety of routine and tradition, rather than sees it as a restriction. Deliberately enjoys the meaning of life, and wants to share it with others. | Loves people, loves connecting with others on a practical, playful level, and takes great pleasure in achieving meaningful goals effectively. |
| Unhealthy | Messy and unable to handle the injustice and unfairness of the world. Innermost emotions become too much to handle, and thus hands the reins over to the co-pilot in the hope to be saved by them. | Escapes into the inner world. Distracts self with books, movies, stories, substance. Comes up with stories that are not necessarily in line with the reality of the outer world. Creates stories about others to reflect how they feel about themselves. | Stubbornly holds on to how things “should” be done, and is idealistic. If this idealism is not met, becomes overly critical of self and others. When overwhelmed with not being able to live up to the idealism, hands the reins over to the 3-year-old self. | Is unable to deal with feelings, refuses to take responsibility for anything and lashes out uncontrollably. Once they come out of this rage, they often feel undeserving of forgiveness, and can slip into depression. |
| Common ways to resolve issue | Trying to force boundaries so that they don’t lose their sovereignty. | Withdrawal and a sense of disappointment in people. | Beating themselves or others into doing things that they think “should” be done. | Lashing out at other people, and making others responsible for how they are feeling. |
| Try this instead |
Remember, that sovereignty of self and others may sometimes seem to be a conflict, but that everyone, including yourself, is entitled to that sovereignty. Learn to look for the good in differences. |
Instead of making stories about what others may or may not be thinking or saying, go and do something FUN! Claim your sovereignty by choosing to do something that nurtures you, instead of focusing on what you can’t control. Learn to pick your battles and let go of the ones that do not serve your authentic self. |
Stay present with the emotions that are presented to you (by yourself or others), and try to see the person as a unique being, who is going through their own struggles. Try to let go of the need to compare others’ behavior to your standards and try to see where they are coming from. |
Walking away from the situation that has triggered you. Take responsibility for your feelings. Once you realize that people are not out to get you, you can go back to clarify your position with the other person from a neutral and open point of view; this will build relationships, rather than put a strain on them. |
As you can see from this diagram, each process can have it’s healthy and unhealthy expression. The question becomes what kind of support you want to offer yourself throughout the rest of your life. I’m sure you’ve noticed a lot of grown-ups running around behaving like children: they are the perfect example of a person who has not undertaken self-parenting, and have not balanced their driver process with a healthy co-pilot. As an INF type, I assume you have aspirations to actualize yourself fully, rather than be at the mercy of others emotions and circumstances.
And so if you were to practice self-parenting and begin to actualize your true self, what would your life look like?
Here are some cause and effect pointers:
- Spending time and making play dates with your inner child is paramount – the time spent with your
inner child is sacred. It builds trust between different parts of you, and you will finally feel safe within yourself. - Building a mental child care facility for your inner child serves a great purpose; this may seem strange, but as adults, we understand that everything in life is not age appropriate for our inner child. Those insecure parts of us will learn to extend trust toward ourselves and the world if they feel safe and secure.
- Enforce boundaries in a reasonable way, but make sure to maintain a certain level of flexibility. People change. You change. Having boundaries that are too rigid disallows natural growth in relationships and within people themselves.
- Choose a suitable parenting style for your inner child and study it. Commit yourself to building a relationship with all these different aspects of you, which is important, as you are the only person you have a relationship with for your entire life. Learn to make yourself a priority.
And some further action steps we recommend to get on your inner parenting journey:
- Book an hour a week to do a sensory activity with your inner child, and do it specifically from a healthy inner parent place (Harmony for INFJs and Exploration for INFPs). Take a walk outdoors, along the beach, sit by a river, lay on the grass and make animals out of cloud shapes, swim, etc. Whatever happens do not cancel – try this for four weeks.
- In the same four-week period, teach yourself to leave your inner child at childcare when attending to grown-up matters that need your full attention; this will teach you to set boundaries with your out of control emotions and will equip you to live a more balanced adult life. Don’t just dump your inner child into childcare – make sure that you make it a pleasant experience for them and reassure them that you will be back in no time to pick them up.
- Write down three things you wish you always had, or had done as a child, and then try to make them happen – there is no rule to say you can’t still do them now, even as an adult.
Your inner parenting journey won’t always be smooth sailing, but it’s good to remember that when you feel powerless in your journey, you can allow these feeling of powerlessness to pass by showing kindness to yourself.
When you struggle, just remember that you are so much more than your feelings at that moment. You are the magnificent being who is doing the work to self-actualize.
That’s how I see you, and it’s an honor to share this work with you.
Want to learn more?
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Merja’s Story (How She Healed As An INFJ)
Developing Perspectives for ENTJs and ENFJs
20 comments
Hi Meg, thank you for your comment – yes, all types have challenges around this. The basics of self parenting is not type dependent, but the specifics on how it all plays out is, of course! What’s your type? :)
INFP here, and I see how this works in myself to a “T”!! I am immensely appreciateive for the way that you broke this down here. Personally, I had no idea that, when I was at conflict with my belief in others or the world, and I focused in on the injustices intensely like a hawk on it’s prey, that I am at such conflict with my authentic (and destined best-self)! I know how much this hurts me to be in this state and I automatically turned to my exploration process to help me make sense of this. However, I in turn don’t make sense of anything. I just go into a downward spiral that continues until depression sinks in…BECAUSE, I can’t research away the fact that these two facts I wrestle with: 1. there is good in people, inherent goodness 2. there is injustice. My exploration process, as of late, with all the terrible things happening in the world would focus on the injustice. I would ask “what if” questions to understand the situation better. However, I wanted so deeply than to make change, and I wrestled with the fact that I can’t believe that we live in a world with the kind of injustice we see. My exploration process wasn’t working properly, as all it wanted was to wipe away the horrible things I see in the world. However, I am just now realizing that when I am in this state of mind that I can hold these two concepts that seem at odds with each other, but don’t have to be. I can say there are 1. both inherently good people AND 2. there is injustice. Something, that I think will take a lot of saying to sink in, and a lot of letting go and surrendering to, as I dislike the reality of it all very much. So, yes when I am aware of an injustice it is much better to then go have FUN, and make sure ALWAYS that I am able to see the good, and I must see the good. It’s not a selfish act. It is necessary for my destiny. Thank you so much!
Eruptions of Inferior Extraverted Sensing
When one or more of the preconditions for eruption of the inferior function are present, Extraverted Sensing appears in its more exaggerated, disruptive form. .
Typical Provocations or Triggers
Dealing with details, especially in an unfamiliar environment, can trigger inferior Extraverted Sensing in Introverted Intuitive types. In fact, these types frequently mention that feeling overwhelmed by details often provokes characteristic inferior function reactions. Unexpected events that interrupt planned activities can also unsettle INTJs and INFJs enough to arouse their inferior function. One INFJ said that “sometimes it can be something like having to get from the airport to a hotel. It can happen if I’m driving a rental car in a foreign city, and even if I’m in my own country.”
Another INFJ reports having the following response when she has to deal with unfamiliar details like taxes and finances:
I feel like I become instantly stupid. I truly don’t seem to be able to take in explanations and process them. I have such anxiety I can’t get through it. I feel panicky inside and desperately look for help from someone who can talk to me on my level so that I can slowly begin to understand.
An INTJ finally turned the accounting for his small business over to an accountant when he found himself becoming tense, irritable, and depressed whenever he had to work on the books.
Of the four dominant Introverted types, it is Introverted Intuitive types who most frequently mention “too much extraverting” as a common trigger for inferior function responses.They describe being provoked by such things as crowds; people overload; noisy, busy environments; feeling that their personal space is being invaded; and frequent interruptions. When faced with such provocations, they retreat inside themselves and become intolerant of intrusions by others.They either express irritation at people’s questions or do not respond at all to attempts to communicate with them.
An INTJ described having been raised in a large family with no private, personal space for anyone. All family members were expected to behave in the same way, as prescribed by a narrow set of acceptable behaviors.“ Even though we had separate rooms,” he said,“we had no freedom to decorate them in our own way or use them for anything but sleeping. I had a sense of frustration and rage at the absence of private territory. In hindsight, I was too often ‘in the grip.’”
Very helpful for me. Especially the list of healthy and unhealthy expressions. I’m struggling to work through all of this for myself. Thank you for sharing with us.
Interesting article. Would love to see how this plays out in other types (or for the title to allude to it focusing entirely on INFXs).