Arriving Somewhere Not Here – (i.e. Change/Growth)
Our current world is going through some strange events and energies. This inherently causes a lot of changes, some short term, some long term, some minor and some major changes. As much as we try to keep ourselves shielded and try to minimize changes to our immediate surroundings and relationships with ourselves and others, it is inevitable for us to change. It is important for us to acknowledge these changes and crucial for us to put in the effort to ground ourselves and self-actualize to be able to adapt and adjust in a positive way.
One of the fundamental ways is to understand ourselves. Figure out what our strengths and weaknesses are. As an INFJ, I am able to step inward and view the chaos, leverage my introverted intuition to quickly identify what is in my control and what is not. Observe patterns and connected aspects of our surroundings to quickly create the big picture.
One of the other important lessons is the ability to identify the fear and the reasons behind it. Not just why but what is causing the fear. We cannot just get rid of or ignore fear. We need to understand what is causing fear. Is it because we do not know what to do with a given situation? Is it because we fear not being successful? Is it because we do not know if we will survive the situation? Is it because we do not have control over the situation? Is it because we are overwhelmed and are not able to think clearly and focus on the smaller first step we need to take? What change or changes can we take internally within our mind and thought process and then in our environment so we can start grounding ourselves and start thinking about what abilities are at our disposal and what steps we need to take and how much time and effort we need to invest in these changes.
In order to be able to start thinking about these questions and work on finding the answers and taking the necessary actions, we need to know ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our abilities, and our support network (internal and external). This is a constant exercise of self-actualization, self-assessment, and continual nurturing and working on our weaknesses to help us grow and adapt in this ever-changing life and world. There are many tools, books, courses, and online resources we can use to start and maintain (no pun intended) ourselves. I have read books, attended courses, and taken personality assessments every year for the past couple of decades and continue to do so. One of the many I gravitate to is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
There are many in the science community who question the MBTI aspect as science typically needs quantifiable studies and numbers to back things up. However, knowing and understanding our personality traits (strengths and weaknesses) is one of the best ways to frame our personal growth path and embark on our journey. The mind of an INFJ processes things broken down by the four cognitive functions. Let’s try to figure out how the INFJ mind is learning information and making decisions and navigating this road of life. Imagine a 4-passenger car and each of the INFJ cognitive functions is in this car.
Introverted Intuition – Dominant function (Perspective) – If one of our mental processes could drive, it would be our dominant function – Introverted Intuition or the Perspective. This perspective ‘driver function’ tends to ask a lot of discovery questions what is the meaning of things? Why are we in this car? Why are we on this road? What are others doing on this road and what are the long-range implications and social trends of things?
Extraverted Feeling – Auxiliary function (Harmony) – The second mental processes, the Extraverted Feeling, would be in the Co-Pilot seat (focused on Harmony) and is how INFJs leverage this to make their best decisions. Harmony is the feeling process that is always asking: What gets everyone’s needs met? This mainly plays into the growth state.
Introverted Thinking – Tertiary function (Accuracy) – The third mental process, sitting behind the co-pilot, is the Accuracy. Accuracy typically asks: Does this make sense? It’s a thinking process focused on data, truth, and congruity of thought. When not used in a healthy way, Accuracy can cause an INFJ to withdraw and become hypercritical of themselves and other people. This mental process, if not nurtured and healthy, has a development of adolescence.
Extraverted Sensing – Inferior function (Sensation) – Lastly, behind the driver of Perspective, is the rear passenger of mental process Sensation. This is the INFJ blind spot and is much younger in maturity than the other three. This sensation is all about real-time kinetics. and understanding of the world through physical sense by being fully in the here and now. Notice, these are not about the INFJ behaviors, these are all about how the mind of an INFJ is wired. These are more from what causes the behaviors.
There are a lot more aspects to dive deeper into the other two mental processes but for now, let’s take it slow and work on this combination of cognitive functions working together in concert and look down the road to observe other cars and drivers and apply those patterns to predict traffic patterns and have multiple plans and paths to navigate the best way possible without causing a major impact to rest of the people on the road. How are two cars (people) agreeing on the path forward without realizing it? This strongest function is able to apply their intuition and forecast and predict multiple scenarios and impact of each of these scenarios and pick the one that is the most harmonious one to everyone involved on this road as well as the potential others merging onto this road.
In an INFJ, the Co-pilot position, Harmony, (Extraverted feeling) is the highest leverage point for growth and figuring out the healthy boundaries. Helping others meet their needs without compromising my own. Growing the co-pilot (harmony) process can be a challenge. it can feel threatening to become vulnerable and speak up to the outside world. Every personality type tends to avoid growing their co-pilot mental process. Here lies the power of understanding our personality. Allow ourselves not to be responsible for the emotions of others and set boundaries not to let the mood and feelings of others control ours. Don’t see the Harmony as something to delay or avoid, embrace getting into this mental process to give us the opportunity to create healthy boundaries in the real world and become more empowered INFJ and get out of the perfectionism concept.
Without developing the smaller functions, we are limiting your ability to grow as a person, impact the world with your mission. How do we develop functions that we have and not making the mistakes that some people make in focusing or wanting to develop shadow functions that they do not have and be somebody we are not? That in itself can make one seem insincere and not genuine, not to mention not easily sustainable and unhealthy. We need to focus on and maximize who we are. We’ll always lead and dominate to the word using our Introverted Intuition, building big picture driven, connecting existing ideas, seeking patterns that simplify ideas/things to the core. Then communicating out through your Extraverted Feeling, expressive/clear, sensitive to criticism, value harmony, and lives according to norms. We want others to feel what we are seeing through our second co-pilot function.
As for the other two smaller INFJ functions, Introverted Thinking, and Extraverted Sensing; having a stronger an Introverted Thinking function, is going to allow us to understand, process, and organize our own ideas even better. As information comes in through our Introverted Intuition (our first function) and that information passes through our next introverted function (Introverted Thinking) we are better able to categorize, organize and understand more, taking the ideas and diving deeper, and understanding more of it. This is a wonderful combination because our introvert intuition is so broad, and our introverted thinking is very specific.
Our extroverted Sensing works in concert with our Extroverted Feeling, so when we are transmitting out our ideas in our Extravert mode, communicating, you can not only communicate the feeling, the emotions. Also, through our Extraverted Sensing so we can show it using good visual demonstrations and analogies. Observe how we as INFJs are deeply thinking through all angles of an idea. Or how we as INFJs are using our senses to show visual aspects. The best way to improve and grow is to leverage our dominant stronger functions to develop our smaller functions and our weaknesses. Once we are comfortable with managing and maintaining changes within ourselves, then we can better adapt and adjust to changes in our surroundings and the outside world.
