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In this episode Joel and Antonia dive deep into the needs and desires of the INFP personality type.
In this podcast on INFP Personality Type you’ll find:
- Why are INFPs misunderstood?
- The cognitive function is a mental process that helps you learn information or make decisions.
- The 4 letter code tells you how your brain is wired. It’s like an entrance on how you learn processes.
- Authenticity – Is a way that you (as an INFP) make your decisions which is more inclined what resonates with you the most as a person.
- INFPs understand emotions on a whole different level.
- Questions to ethics become very intriguing to INFPs. For example: “what determines an ethical or moral action?”
- Authenticity is very in touch with the subjective human experience.
- Authenticity is where we humans find conscience. Because that’s when we ask, “how do we honor people’s individuality?”
- Oftentimes, INFPs become masters of human experience in general.
- The ability to determine that something resonates is a maturity of the Authenticity process. As it matures, it understands that not everything they experience is the same as everyone.
- Do INFPs truly want to be understood?
- Nobody could be 100% understand them apart from themselves.
- INFPs feel being marginalized and dismissed way more than being misunderstood.
- INFPs seek validation.
- We want to acknowledge that they have a specific type of pain based from their personality type.
- Authenticity type should be balanced with Exploration. Exploration (the co-pilot function) is about advanced pattern recognition in the outside world – thinking behind the curtain.
- If you want more description or definition, check out our episode “Introverted Intuition VS Extraverted Intuition”.
- Your superpowers are developed when you learn to master your co-pilot.
- Art is one of the places where INFPs thrive.
- Art is a communication of feeling and INFPs simply flourish in this context. They create art that’s impactful.
- For INFPs, they tend to recall how they felt/reacted in the past.
- They have the ability to mirror emotions. They don’t need to mirror emotions in real time. For example, the can look at an art piece and mirror the emotion to themselves.
- Authenticity people tend to recall how they feel/how they imagined they would feel and then instantly replicating the emotion inside them.
- The emotional language can be transferred in long extensive periods of time.
- In order to be authentic, you need to have a mature and vast understanding of how the world works.
- Intent: The Darker aspect of Authenticity. INFPs tend to try to give a reason that’s combated with logic.
- INFPs tend to defend their intent, because they see a wide array of positive and negative intent. They understand how people can easily go and slip into bad intent.
- Healthy INFPs view everything has positive intent.
- Being able to understand that darkness is universal and part of the human experience will help you accept yourself.
- How to go about making a living as an INFP?
- Getting something done can sometimes be very challenging for INFPs.
- INFPs have the desire to make an impact and be an inspirational leader. Oftentimes, they will disregard the passion they have. Passion is extremely important.
- Authenticity people can have the tendency to marginalize people. Make sure you do what you’re passionate with. Check in with yourself what you really want.
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215 comments
Thanks for the comment, V! I found your personal insights into the INFP mind interesting and enlightening.
Thank you for conceptualizing and putting into words this thing of ‘mirroring feelings’ I’ve known but not been sure of how to describe.
My prior attempt consisted of saying that I somehow knew of feelings that I’ve not fully experienced before. Including the word mirroring in the process makes more sense.
Along with this, the point made about being able to ‘not feel certain things at will’ helped me to understand why I might come off as cold to someone else.
I also agree with others who have left responses in that I would not want to be fully understood. However, I’ve had close friends (including my significant other) tell me that they don’t think/feel that they know me very well, and I’m not sure what to make of this. It leaves me more down in the dumps than I expect it to. On the other hand, I appreciate it when people refer to me as unpredictable in the sense of ’it’s hard to know where you’re at/how you will react to something’. Sure, these are two different things but they are sort of related.
The half-assed aspect applies to me as well, as much as I try to remain conscientious about my work. Interestingly, I actually try to justify my half-assed-ness to myself by saying that I value my sanity over whatever work I am supposed to accomplish. Though this is true, it’s not something other people seem to understand/value (and sometimes for good reason). For example, I know someone like my father would just call me ‘lazy’.
One final aspect I would like to comment on is the bit about ‘not knowing what decisions to make until after we’ve already made it’. Though this has happened to me, I just wanted to add that an integral part of my decision process (in addition to considering pros and cons as mentioned) is feeling what things would be like if I were to choose one thing. It’s sort of like reflecting on how would my life change? what new things would I be doing? but it’s an overall feeling of the decision rather than a practical evaluation of it (I’m not sure that I explained this very well, so I apologize for that).
Regarding the part in the beginning when you mentioned that people will misinterpret an INFP’s process and say, oh you ‘feel’ it’s not right – get over it. I think that is being misunderstood. The person does not understand that my decisions are cemented in something that is highly accurate for me. Perhaps INFPs are not the ‘most’ misunderstood. I cannot say, as the INFP experience is the only one I have. I’m personally not comfortable labeling anything the most x or the best x, because I don’t think MBTI is an all inclusive model to understanding each other. What about thinker females or feeler males? I bet their experience is different than the opposite sex of their same MBTI type. Perhaps they are more misunderstood than their counterpart.
Regarding absorbing versus mirroring emotion, if the end result is the same that the INFP/J know feels this emotion does the process of how it got there matter? For me, an INFP, it doesn’t because all I know is I’m sensitive and need boundaries. Yet perhaps there is a mirroring or reverse-mirror exercise I don’t know about that could help out in these extra sensitive times. As far as asking myself how do I mirror someone, it is never a conscious process for me. It just happens. Most times unwillingly. I always feel emotions, yet I may choose to not express them.
I also don’t really believe in healthy and unhealthy people (INFPs) in the way you remarked but healthy and unhealthy ‘behaviors’. Or mature/immature, experienced/inexperienced. To me the distinction is important because labeling a person unhealthy emotionally is like saying every aspect is unhealthy and this is probably not the case.
I also found the part about experiencing an emotion fully for 8 minutes will relieve it versus stifling the emotion. I agree that repression or suppression is unhealthy and that perhaps there is a relatively short amount of time that the deepest intensity is experienced but I think depending on the event the intense emotion can come back in waves. Perhaps smaller waves. An example that comes to mind is that of grieving over a deceased family member/friend. It takes more than 8 minutes to fully grieve. But I’m not sure that is what you were saying. I also believe when fully expressing these emotions that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to do so.
I think finding your passion can be tricky because an INFP then has to deal with logistical details as you mentioned. I like your advice of finding a secret weapon. I’m not sure that is something INFPs do well since we are introverts. So a good thing to know and consciously put to practice.
Thanks for the feedback Andrea! I’m happy the podcast resonated with you so strongly. It sounds like you are on the right path to exploration and growth.
Just want to say I love your podcasts and info, it has been so helpful! I have recently been revisiting INFP for myself and this podcast really touched every point so well! What you said about validation vs understanding—rang so true so deeply within myself. Sounds dramatic, but it’s true! The idea of using Exploration to grow really caught my attention and made me excited. I love the prospect of getting out there and exploring. My counselor has greatly encouraged me to take up writing poetry again, something I haven’t done in the years since getting married, having a child, and having to do “real” mundane life stuff (I commented on the depression podcast too). Writing poetry has really opened me up again, and I’m learning how essential it is to have a creative outlet, especially as an INFP. I sing for my church which has also helped me get out there and express and create in a spiritual way.
I have done some study of the enneagram and have been playing around with doing some training to teach or be a guide in the enneagram. I’ve always fantasized with having my own business, and your ideas on how an INFP can go after their passion really spoke to me. Honestly, I have never found one true passion to focus on—I love music, personal growth, reading and learning (I currently work in a children’s library and love it for the most part). I love animals, nature. I pretty much love anything because I like to learn new things and I’m curious. But, I would love to learn the enneagram more officially and help others discover themselves in that system. I’d love to have like an online service, kind of like what you do here, just with enneagram. I’m not sure how to do that, but I’ve started researching. Anyway, this recording and the INFP course is probably something I’ll be coming back to a lot. Thanks!