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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
Oops. This was supposed to be a reply to C.S.Taylor’s comment.
I felt that Antonia and Joel are right that INFPs lack validation more than they need understanding. I felt their way of expressing it in this particular podcast was a big long and less clear than it could be, but I agreed with what they put forward.
And yes, when you have a skillset that others do not, others can’t understand it, for sure. It’s as simple as my ability as an artist. Other people who are not artists might say, “That illustration you did on the cover of that board game looks really great.” And I might say, “Thanks, what do you like about it?” And then they’ll proceed to talk about the most obvious and mundane elements of the artwork. They won’t notice the finer details. Yet another artist of similar skill levels will look at my artwork keenly and notice those finer details.
In this way, perhaps each Myers-Briggs type can only be fully understood by another person of the same type. I’m not sure, since some types (like mine – INFJ) really feel into other people deeply, and other types don’t. But as we all mature in our own full skillsets, we all have ways to at least get some form of understanding of other people, whether it is intellectual or empathic.
~ Raederle, INFJ
The Consciousness Alchemist
Hi!
I’m an INFJ married to an INFP. Listening to your podcast, I was struck by how apt “conscience” lands for me when thinking about my husband’s decision-making process (introverted feeling). We also resonate with the struggle of an INFP being comfortable with just saying, “I feel that we should do this differently,” or something like that. I will say, “Why?” And he will immediately become defensive, because he has learned through experience that culture does not validate his feeling-based decision making process (Fi). (And I’ve often fallen prey to endlessly questioning him.)
I think it is important to note that INFJs and INFPs are both almost exclusively HSPs – Highly Sensitive People. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, I highly recommend reading the book, The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., or visiting their website (hsperson). The site actually has some articles about Myers-Briggs types and being a HSP.
Being a HSP is genetic, so if you’re a HSP, there are certain Myers-Briggs types you will most likely turn out to be. Elaine says, “My research, including interpreting Myers Brigs results with scores of HSPs, has shown the majority of HSPs are of the “NF” temperament, specifically: INFP, followed by INFJ, then ENFP, ENFJ. Then comes ISFJ, and less frequently, ESFJ. There are many HSPs who are “Ts” and can be found within the “NT” temperament, such as INTP and INTJ. Fewer HSPs are ISTJ, ISTP. I have met only two HSPs who identified as ESTJ.”
Highly Sensitive People have lower serotonin production. This is why the Myers-Briggs types that HSPs generally are usually mention, “This type can fall into long depressions.” However, the low serotonin production of an HSP also impacts positive emotions, causing feelings and gratitude and joy to be even more intense than they are for people who don’t have the genetic trait.
I learned a lot more about this subject and how it interacts with childhood traumas by reading Childhood Interrupted. For me, my upbringing caused me to idealize the ENTJ type (sometimes known as “The Commander”). But my actual brain wiring is for an INFJ; introverted intuition (Ni) is clearly my dominant function.
I have a really detailed article about my own type as an INFJ as well as some things about my INFP husband on my website. The title is something like “Oracle / INFJ / HSP” if you’re interested in looking it up.
About fifty minutes into the podcast you guys are talking about an INFP’s relationship with darkness. My (INFP) husband points out that it isn’t simply that an INFP wants to profess themselves as having good intent, because if they are doing that, they’re actually being manipulative in a way. The INFP can tell that there are both positive and negative feelings and intentions behind all actions; there are light and dark motives in all decisions. Granted, the dark motives are often only 1% to 5% of a given desire or decision. But of course, this fine detail of feeling is important to an INFP.
So the INFP is in a precarious situation, because if the INFP says, “Sure, I have an ulterior motive, but it’s no big deal, it’s no worse than your ulterior motive,” then the other person will be offended because they’re not conscious of their own ulterior motives and will deny having any. So it puts the INFP in a bind; they can feel there is something not quite right about something, but without taking a lot of time to feel into it, they can’t express it in a way that others will readily understand. If they attempt a clumsy explanation, they may offend others.
Worse, an INFP doesn’t want to lose the trust and faith of their friends or partner(s). It’s crucial that others trust the INFP’s process (introverted feeling) and validate that process, and so INFPs can be protective of fostering that trust. Furthermore, INFPs must maintain trust in themselves, even when they see darkness in themselves, so it is critical that they only reveal the darkness they see in themselves to a trusted person who will accept them and validate them despite the darker inclinations. If the self-trust is not maintained, there is a risk of self-hatred, which (as far as I can tell) is true for anyone.
As a side note, you guys repeated yourself a lot in the early part of the podcast. My husband and I felt there wasn’t a lot of content in the first twenty-five minutes. You might consider (considering how popular this post is), editing that first twenty-five minutes to be less repetitive. Also, you could potentially incorporate anything new you guys have learned from the comments or life experience or whatever since the podcast was originally recorded.
Blessings,
Raederle, INFJ
The Consciousness Alchemist
Hi Alice,
It is important to note that INFJs and INFPs are both almost exclusively HSPs – Highly Sensitive People. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, I highly recommend reading the book, The Highly Sensitive Person, or visiting their website. They actually have some articles about Myers-Briggs types and being a HSP. The important thing to note is that being a HSP is genetic, so if you’re a HSP, there are certain Myers-Briggs types you will most likely turn out to be, and each of the types that an HSP can be all have certain things in common which relate to being a HSP such as lower serotonin production. This is why the Myers-Briggs types that HSPs generally are usually have somewhere in their description, “This type can fall into long depressions.” However, the low serotonin production of an HSP also impacts positive emotions, causing feelings and gratitude and joy to be even more intense than they are for people who don’t have the genetic trait.
You can learn a lot more about this subject and how it interacts with childhood traumas as well by reading Childhood Interrupted. Once you’ve read that, you may be able to figure out how your individual traumas have influenced you to behave in certain ways that are outside your type. For example, for me, my upbringing caused me to idealize the ENTJ type (sometimes known as “The Commander”). But my actual brain wiring is for an INFJ, which introverted intuition (Ni) clearly being my dominant function.
I have a really detailed article about my own type as an INFJ as well as some things about my INFP husband on my website. The title is something like Oracle / INFJ / HSP if you’re interested in looking it up.
Also, did you see the other response to your comment? Ara’s thoughts are quite enlightening and definitely accurately reflect my INFP husband.
~ Raederle, INFJ
Hi L,
I’m not sure Antonia meant to say that an INFP who hadn’t found a singular thing to be passionate about indicated a lack of authenticity. Sometimes people say things like, “Oh, that person hasn’t found their passion yet,” in such a way that makes it sound as if their passion is singular, but in truth, few people have singular passions. In fact, very, very, very few people have singular passions, and I think individuals of this nature may actually be imbalanced.
For example, consider how many people are passionate about cooking, or about parenting or psychology in addition to their career. Lots of people are passionate about sex in addition to everything else they’re passionate about in their life.
I do think, though, based one everything I’ve learned about the INFP type (which my husband of ten years is), that INFPs may need more variety and more passions than other types in order to thrive. My husband needs regular changes of focus and activity or he quickly becomes drained.
I do recall Antonia talking about going for the exact thing that you’re most in alignment with at a given moment, and not going for something on the sidelines. My husband seemed to be struck by that, and so was I. So often we all make the mistake of settling for something less than our true dreams, and Antonia implied that INFPs really need to attend to their true dreams more than most. But those dreams don’t have to be singular to apply to what she’s saying. I just took it to mean to go for what you’re in alignment with most at this moment, and then when the passion shifts, shift with it.
:)
~ Raederle, INFJ