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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
I just want to say that due in part to this podcast, I have been able to rediscover my true identity.
Growing up I was surrounded by an ISTJ and an ENTJ who both had untreated emotional wounds, resulting in a childhood filled with emotional abandonment and abuse. When I left that environment I finally was able to unravel and acknowledge that the little girl who had empathy, emotional awareness, and compassion wasn’t wrong. In fact a lot of times she was right…people need to be seen, understood, and validated. There was nothing wrong with that. Now I am married to an ESFP (sometimes an ESTP) and while he struggles to understand my rapid changes in emotions at times, he has helped me so much.
Question for the audience though… I really do not get along well with ENTJs and INTJS. They really drive me crazy…they have no heart. Anyone else experience that?
You described me completely..Thank you guys it really does explain a lot. I have always been so good at reading other people and giving advice but i am so terrible at understanding myself
Thank you guys for this I’m INFJ and really struggling at the moment I think I needed to hear some that right now
Reading the headline of the first advice made me crumble and cry. It was the hardest lesson I had to learn and it took me all my life to understand the profound difference between the projections that had been put on me and the feeling of self. Since then I learned to hold on to my perception and do not allow others to tell me how I feel and who I am. I got lost many times in empathizing with others more than with myself. Hurting other people is the same as hurting myself. Nevertheless, it opened the door for people to instrumentalise me for satisfying their needs. The want to see themselves in you and they treat you accoding to the ideas they have about a) who you should be or should not be and b) who are or are not. If you have the tendency to adjust to others, since it feels like it costs so little and the other person is so “poor” while you yourself feel so strong, what can happen is that you loose your own identity up to the point that you loose every sense of yourself. The confusion, the devastation, the pain. A lot of this could have been prevented if my 15 year old self would have understood the difference between what others tell it is and who it actually is. Ripping of projections is such a freeing and wonderful feeling. I am not questioning who I am anymore and it helps me a lot to deal with manipulative attempts. I know now that my intuition is right – well within limits of course, everybody errs ;) – and I will not ever again let anybody else determine how a situation should be perceived by me. Listen to yourself, learn to understand the difference between what you want for yourself and what you want for others. If you do something for somebody else, it should be clear to you, that you are doing it for them. They don’t need to know, but YOU should know. Listen to your “no” even if you want to ignore it for making somebody else happy, sometimes you can, but each time it should be a decision, it should not beome your nature to please or help others irrespective of the consequences for yourself. Disregard this “no” if you think it is really a minor thing for you and/or the cause is worth it, but make it a CONSCIOUS decision, not an intuitive action. Don’t do it out of love, it will rarely be reciprocal and most likely you won’t save lost souls. But you could be devastated to learn that you have been used.
There are people that are searching for guidance and support. People that long for it. There are people that enjoy giving things back and that will at least try to respect you.
Everything becomes som much easier if you learn to disentangle the emotions from others in you from the ones that arise in yourself. Consciousness for yourself is a powerful tool. Try to understand your own emotions better before you start action.
Never stop learning. Never forget that what is good is context-dependent and what you think is best for the world might not be regared best by everyone. Don’t forget that some “friends” might use your sympathy against a) yourself and/or b) against everybody whom they want you to dislike. Don’t allow yourself and your empathy to be instrumentalized.
Apart from that, the world is a beautiful place. It can be cherished most by sensing it. Feel the wind, feel the sun, feel the cities and the countries around you. It is rich and wonderful. Enjoy!
Great podcast! It’s good to listen to this and see that there are people who actually get it. I stumbled upon this site while searching for ways to lower the stress – at first, sports was good at it and I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team and it felt great to get out of the house, do something, hang out with different people – even though they don’t get me. And this is sort of weird as I really need my time alone with books after a long week at work, but at the same time I got addicted to going to tournaments and spending this time with my new friends, but at the same time, there’s no time to recharge the batteries.
As I got more involved in the managing stuff of our sports club I got this feeling and need to solve all the problems and be the best at everything (especially when I was the only one female handler on the team for a while). There’s this need to prove myself all the time and when there’s a problem between my teammates I feel like I need to solve this. Recently, it just was too much for me and I pretty much got a major emotional meltdown. I have no idea how to deal with this as spending some time alone helps for a moment…
So, I did identify three things that got me to the point where I can’t take this and I’m pretty much going off like a bomb, but I’m struggling with finding a solution. I kind of fear that when we go on national championships I’ll sort of get into the team mood (which at some point is going really down) and it will make things unbearable. Perhaps team sports is not exactly good for introverts, but it gives purpose and my team sort of understands at some level the introvert thing. We are sort of nerdy introverts among other teams. I don’t know if it makes sense :)