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In this episode Joel and Antonia dive deep into the needs and desires of the INFJ personality type.
In this podcast on the INFJ Personality Type you’ll find:
- This podcast episode talks about the INFJ personality type
- We have an unusually high number of INFJs represented in Personality Hacker
- INFJs have the tendency to feel very misunderstood.
- 2 important components to understand INFJs:
- Their mental process is called ‘Perspectives’. They’re actually watching their own mind work and form patterns. Because this isn’t something verifiable, other people just don’t believe them or reject what they radiate.
- INFJs pair Perspectives with Harmony. When a person with the INFJ personality type tries to figure out what to do, the first thing that pops in their mind is, “how do we make sure everybody’s needs are met?” This process is in tuned with unspoken social contracts that we accept.
- INFJs are very sensitive to the emotions of other people that they end up absorbing them.
- The more sensitive they are, the more they have the tendency hiding. The less expressive they get, the more pain they experience.
- It’s difficult for the INFJ personality type to build intimacy with another person.
- INFJs who are developed and growth oriented don’t retreat to coldness. They’ve taken the harmony process in order to understand and create healthy boundaries.
- INFJs are also able to see how things will play out in the future and this is one of the reasons why they are hesitant to build intimacy with other people.
- Because they are so aware of what’s going on with the other person, they end up having one-sided relationships.
- Jesus of Nazareth, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr were probably INFJs.
- INFJs are not in the receiving end in victimization. They have extraordinary capabilities within them.
- If you are an INFJ personality type or know someone who is, here are a few things you need to note:
- You don’t have to absorb other people’s emotions and have it stay there. You need to develop techniques to let it go.
- Words have power and the way you describe yourself will become your reality. Change the way you talk about yourself and think of ways of being a co-creator. Create a reality that’s positive to you. If you change the word use, you can change reality.
- When getting everybody’s needs met, you’re basically part of everybody. Getting your needs met means you take care of yourself. Get sensitive to what those needs are in real time.
- Honor what you need in the moment and be willing to take care of it. This will help you get other’s needs met.
- Continue to look for people who understand you. Allow yourself to be understood and form the relationships you’ve been desiring.
- You can’t change that you’re going to absorb people’s emotions. Manage and learn strategies that will help you figure out a way to let the energy come in and go out.
- Do what you can to see yourself as a person who has positive things to contribute to the world. Focus what you got as gift and not as a burden to others.
Helpful resources for the INFJ personality type:
Developing Your INFJ Personality Type (by Donna Dunning)
The INFJ Personality Type (by Dr. A.J. Drenth)
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304 comments
So I read some tips for INFJ’s to get what they need from relationships and interactions: find other intuitives, engage in intuitive conversations, and learn better self-care. Got it.
My dilemma: Having a HUGE struggle finding other intuitives that will stick around to engage. Most of the intuitives I end up finding or the ones that end up finding me are ENFP’s or ENFJ’s. Don’t get me wrong… I love them. But after my interactions with them, I am left feeling: a) I am not a priority because I am just one of the many in their crowd of “friends”, and b) it very quickly becomes all about them…even if I take the huge courageous step of trying to show them a little bit of the real me.
My question… Should it really be so, so, so hard? Even when I express my NEED for those type of interactions, I can totally tell when those people in my life are only interacting on that level in a pseudo-caring way. Like they are doing it because I mentioned I need that rather than because they want to and enjoy it. I then lose most interest in the conversation because again I feel like I inconvenienced someone and self-shaming ensues. Lol… Sorry for being so melodramatic.
Thank you so much for this!
Hello beautiful people…
I’m Sindi (21) and an INFJ…
I just listened to the podcast… OMS ON POINT!!! I always felt misunderstood especially since the people closest to me (my best friend of 17 years and my mom) are both really realistic, logical driven people.
I only found out that I’m an INFJ a few weeks ago and it changed so many things in my life. It cleared up so many things for me and for the first time I really had peace with myself, knowing that there’s nothing wrong with me. I would usually tell people what I’m feeling or I would randomly have huge breakdowns where I go into really deep depression and then people tell me to suck it or to stop being so sensitive.
Also, when I meet someone for the first time, after talking less than 5 minutes with them I can tell where this relationship is going, especially when it comes to dating and then obviously if it’s not going to work, what’s the point… then friends and family would tell me to just give people a chance and to go on many dates to be able to get to know what I want and how guys are, to stop being so judgemental… and I can’t because everything inside fights against that. People would also make a bid deal about something being wrong with me because of this. I had so much release when I heard that this is actually normal for an INFJ.
I also used to tell my mom that I’m really struggling with dealing with myself and with my personality, then she would tell me that I’m not being myself, because it should be easy to be yourself… I think other INFJ’s know how this feels.
I do have the emotion’s mirroring capability of an INFP… and, along with the emotion’s absorbing ability of an INFJ, that can get insanely painful. Both of these abilities are very sensitive in my life and since an INFJ absorbs the emotion it’s supposed to go away when you leave the space of the person actually feeling the emotion, but because I can put myself into someone else’s shoes like an INFP I carry the absorbed emotion with me.
OMS it literally feels like I’m going to die sometimes because of the pain and the effect that the pain has on my physical heart… I also get light headed, headaches and I get nauseous sometimes…. but
I really believe in working through emotions since there was a time in my life where I had to deal with REALLY bad bipolar depression, I stopped talking to people for about 6 months, I was like a zombie and people didn’t understand so I lost most of my friends …and long story short… I really got tires of myself being depressed all the time so I have really learnt how to deal with emotions and pain.
What really helps me is, that instead of falling into the pain that you absorb in a way of victimizing yourself and telling yourself it hurts, it hurts and telling everyone around you: " You don’t understand how much it hurts. You’ll never understand. Nothing’s ever going to get better. I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life"( which is what I would always do, because 90% of the time that IS how it feels like.) Well, instead of doing that, I really focus on what I am feeling and I do it quite intensely so that it gets to the point where I can tell what caused the emotion and then I pick up and understand people’d internal struggles. When you understand why they feel what they feel you can actually sometimes really help them, because with that you get the understanding of how they were raised sometimes and when the root of their pain actually started which is a lot of times while they were very young.
I have been really learning how to do this for about little more than a year and it made the world’s difference… and when you allow yourself to understand someone’s pain and not just feel it, it could be easier to build intimacy.. or at least that’s how I feel, because when you understand why they feel what they feel, it’s easier to release the pain back into the world and not bottle it up. And since an INFJ can tell where relationships will go and since they can also tell whether someone is lying to them or hiding something from them, I feel like this gives me comfort when trying to build intimacy with someone…
It took A LOT of pain, swollen eyes from crying all night, sleeping time away, actual sickness and sore throats from screaming just to try to get the pain out- and then it doesn’t really help- and most of all it took A LOT of confusion to get to where I am today.
Also I got born again when I was 15 and that drastically changed my life. God has really taught me how to deal with this and I’m still learning… it’s become quite exciting…
I hope this maybe helped someone…
Have the most wonderful day.
God bless you guys.
thank you for the very enlightening podcast. i’ve always been interested in personality typing and have tried to type myself multiple times using various tools online. the frustrating things is, until today i am still unsure where i stand. istp, istj, intj, intp – i’ve considered all these. 2 years ago i thought i can finally settle with intp. i read about it extensively on AJ Drenth’s website – Personalty Junkie, and felt that it’s the closest match thus far. i accepted it and went on my merry way. but every now and then i get the nagging feeling that a small part of the jigsaw is still not matching which got me started revisiting my profile again to try to see if i misunderstood something.
i didn’t quite understand the nature of Ne and was skeptical of Si and i was pretty certain that i’m more of an extraverted judger than a perceiver. Long story short…i typed as infj this time. i was highly skeptical seeing the Fe and Se in infj. i didn’t expect Se to be my inferior and Fe to be my auxiliary. so until this moment i still have my doubts though i think i’m beginning to grasp through your podcast, how all 4 functions of the infj play out when they’re healthy and when they’re not. i’m excited to realize that a possible reason i had typed as intp previously was due to the wounding which caused me to rely more on my tertiary Ti and pushes my Fe to feel like an inferior function. It’s beginning to make sense now. As for Ne in the intp, i guess i didn’t fully grasp how it looks like. i only see it as gathering of information and because i love to learn, i thought that it fits.
although things are beginning to fall into place as an infj, i still have my doubts due to the Fe. i don’t see myself as compassionate and i don’t relate to the part about absorbing emotions. maybe i didn’t understand it. in fact a lot of times, i feel indifferent or at least is able to move past something and mind my own business. but i certainly naturally find ways to appease/ please others and not cause any conflicts. yes i do try to create some form of harmony if i can. i feel very tense myself if there is tension in the air but anyone would won’t they,if they’re in the middle of a tense situation? but i don’t think i can “feel” another person’s pain. i also try to avoid dealing with people if i can help it yet cutting people out completely can be depressing after a while. i’m most comfortable when there are people around me but not for me to engage with, more as as “background noise”. so i don’t understand how can i have Fe as my auxiliary when i feel this way towards people. and i see that a lot of commentors here also keep people at arms length, so how can Fe be the auxiliary. isn’t auxiliary supposed to be our second most developed function? if so, we should be attracted to and energized by people no? Or am I misunderstanding something here?
As for Se being the inferior function, i have not read about it in detail yet. Can you explain how it looks like in real time? I used to be a make-up artist and i think i did pretty ok skill wise. I’m the only person in my family who has some artistic/creative talent. But i recognize that my these talent are merely ok, can get by, but not great. I feel there’s a ceiling that i can’t seem to go beyond. i’m also moved by beauty especially in nature. i won’t consider a job if my workplace is gonna be shabby and drab. i delight in all things beautiful so how can my Se be inferior??
Thank you for this pod cast. What I appreciate the most was the pain points, especially the one sided relationships. A common phrase for me to hear is “you know me better than I know myself”. Which is flattering and humbling, but it is also lonely. What I usually get back is not mutual understanding or connection, but admiration. There is this “You get me, I like you, here is a pedestal” distancing that takes place. Sometimes it is even like being told, “you get me, but you are not like me”. And, as strange and ungrateful as it may seem, I don’t want to be admired or idealized. I want to be seen and understood. I want connection. I want someone to relate to me one-on-one as an equal, and that cannot happen when isolated on a pedestal. So to have some one say “hey, this is you” and really get it, is a blessing, thank you.