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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
Hello Jen. I just wanted to connect and say Thankyou. You have explained yourself as if it was me. I don’t feel so alone knowing you are exactly like I. ?
As an INFJ who has taken the MB several times (to try and convince myself I’m NOT an INFJ), this podcast was really helpful. I so related to Joel’s Mom — that feeling that I’m the sounding board but I don’t have a sounding board of my own. Now, in mid-life, and as the youngest of a large family, my siblings (no other INFJs) and I are kind of in divorce-mode, as I’m finally figuring out boundaries. I’ve also done that work thing, in which I’ve been in a career that doesn’t speak to my sensibilities (it’s just a job). I’ve gone unprotected too long, not understanding what I needed to create a force field between myself and the psychic garbage I pick-up, so thank you for validating all of this. Oh, and I’ve predicted things that have astounded my husband for years, so at least I’ve got that INFJ party trick to speak of!
Thanks so much for this very insightful podcast. Lots of good information to digest. I am sitting at my desk in a newly created space to make time for myself to reflect and giving myself permission to do so. It is good!
I’m an INFJ, and although I find myself listening a lot to others as they stop by my desk at work, I never go to anyone’s desk to talk about myself. I have very few friends, and I prefer that, but then I worry that something is wrong with me that I feel that way. I find having friends is exhausting; they have expectations that I just don’t want to meet. I hate small talk but I can engage in it if I have to. My very best and really only true friend is an INFP, and we seem to totally get each other. And lastly, I relish time alone. My home is like my cocoon where I rejuvenate and can completely relax. I’m finding myself pulling further and further away from people other than my children (all grown). I think I’m just weird and don’t have much to offer. Sorry this sounds pathetic, like a pity party. Not my intention. I have a brother who I think is an INFP who is basically a recluse. I’m a little worried that I’m becoming like him.
Hi,
I found out I’m an INFJ two years ago. I am 21 now, soon to be 22…
Firstly thank you for giving out as accurate perspective on the INFJ mindset as possible. The part about where you told us about the Harmony and the perspective is very accurate. Especially the part where we INFJs set up boundaries and learn about giving disapproval to others.
This was the part I learnt the hard way. During the teenage years, it’s so difficult to accept that you’re different and not understand why you’re different. This is the point in my life where I did everything I thought I should do to get accepted but it didn’t help. There was so much disapproval because I knew something that I shouldn’t have known. That trauma there put me in a depression for two years in my high school. So after talking about it, thinking about and just about shutting myself out and not getting close to anybody allowed me to rethink my approach to people. Made me think ‘maybe I don’t need their approval and maybe they don’t need my approval either because of the way handled the situation and me.’
That was the turning point where I started putting boundaries. So I now do everything I can to make sure the people I let in are not the bulls to my China shop.
The thing you spoke about where the relationships we have being one sided rings true with me. I learned to cope by being by thinking they just don’t get that you might not have problems of your own. I mean everybody comes to me when they have problems. Everyone knows that. So the problem here I think is we are so good at handling other people’s emotions, they assume we’d have no problem managing own thanks to the insight we have.
So it does feel difficult to get intimate with others.
So about the emotions- letting them out
- I vent about the offending comment, or the injustice that happened.
So I start with how it’s so wrong and then slowly it goes to the part of where oh she’s not the same person as me.
So me thinking about how that is wrong to expect the other person to behave like me, is me being idealistic. So after the realisation of me getting to the part, I go to my phone read my favorite fanfiction and that’s it that anger and offending emotions are gone. I don’t know if how I’m dealing with it is right but this how I go through it. And it works for me.
Thanks for this. Hope I can hear from you guys.