I remember when I did the MBTI test several years ago. To my surprise, it showed that I was an INFJ-A.
I knew that I was an introvert, a thinker, and that I always felt like I didn’t belong. But I didn’t know about my levels of empathy and intuition so much. Because these were traits I tried to suppress as best I could.
Later I learned that this was totally normal for INFJs to do that.
Seems like I was not the only one who was called too sensitive and who found that feelings were often overwhelming or simply too painful.
Long story short, I found a box for me. The INFJ label served me well. It gave me a better idea of who I was and helped me understand how I function as a person.
The spooky thing is that when you get such insights, it often can feel as if we are somehow wired like a robot. I mean it can quite help you to fix some things.
Ultimately, it’s also the question of whether our personality is something static, something we have to live with all our life once it is more or less set in stone.
But let’s stick with knowing your personality type a little more before I come to the answer. Yep, you need to read a bit more before you earn it, hehehe....
Healing Can Free You From Old Roles
You probably know the story of the ugly duckling. Basically, a swan grows up among ducks and is the odd one out. No fun.
Once the swan knows it is a swan, the story changes. It won’t feel wrong or defective anymore and instead does more of the things a swan does. Looking handsome, proud, and finding its mate.
Basically, knowing it is a swan helps to turn its life around and live according to its very nature and be happy and content from there on.
Yep, that’s quite a bit romantic. But that’s what swans also are, right? I mean, at least for us they are, in our mental image or when we paint them on a canvas to make the lake scene look way more romantic.
So what does this have to do with us?
With healing from our past, the story is similar. We may have lived a life that was not really fitting for who we really are. But once we have an idea about our real identity, we can make changes and live more according to our true nature.
Now to the romantic part...
Many of us believe that once healing is done, we finally have become who we are and everything is sunshine and roses. Maybe even fairy dust, lots of synchronicities, and all the magic you had hoped for. Because once you are in alignment with yourself, the universe gives you everything you need.
I am quite exaggerating here to make my point very clear.
No, I don’t make fun of anybody here. For a long time, I also believed that life would magically be better once healing was done. A bit like leaving my past behind, being in the now, and living my purpose.
And if you have not reached that point yet, maybe your healing is not complete yet.
It’s a logical thought, right?
Finding Yourself Can Become Another Trap
For many, the MBTI personality is just a starting point.
It opens a door for you. You do your research and find out how much more there is to explore. You learn that there are at least two different kinds of INFJs: the assertive and the turbulent one.
Then you stumble upon Enneagrams and how that may explain your INFJ personality type even further. The deeper you go, the more information you get.
And trust me, the whole thing has no end.
You can fall into a very deep rabbit hole until one day you hopefully become aware that your search makes no sense anymore.
Maybe we have to accept that we will never really know who we truly are.
There is actually a beauty in it.
If knowing ourselves is not totally possible, maybe that shows that we don’t need to fully know who we are. I mean, would you bother with all the soul-searching when your life feels more or less good? When you feel like you belong, have a strong purpose, or when you draw energy just from exploring life?
Maybe we just need to know ourselves well enough to get the rubble from the past out of our way. And from then on it doesn’t really matter.
Maybe it’s even more important to have an idea of who we want to become rather than knowing who we are.
Maybe...
Life Is Always Changing — And So Are You
Life is always changing, they say.
I had no problems with accepting that for as long as I could prepare for those changes. We know that after school we might go to university and then get a job.
So we try to get decent grades and make sure everything goes according to the plan laid out for us. It may not be the most fun, but we feel somewhat in control and don’t question the path we are walking on too much.
This questioning might come later when we find out that somehow we are not happy. It’s not that we need to have constant happiness, but when we are rarely happy, life will feel more and more empty.
For many, it’s a slow change. Life isn’t suddenly meaningless. But the less you can shine your light and just function somehow, the more the current of life will wash out your energy. A bit like an ocean washing down the edges of the rocks at the shore.
Other times, life changes are directly visible. Like when you become a mother or a father. Hopefully it’s a change you welcome, and you will be surprised by how much this will change you.
And then there are changes we don’t want at all. Like when we lose our jobs, the place we live, or a loved one. We might not even be prepared to handle the intensity such changes might come with.
It can feel like our world is totally falling apart.
But over time, when we have deeply grieved, licked, and healed our wounds, we learn to adapt to the new life we are now experiencing. And looking back, one day we may become aware of how much we have changed during such tough times.
That’s when you also get a sense that there is not just one you.
You didn’t suddenly change from a toddler to a teenager and then to an adult.
Of course, in your growing up phase, your changes were more visible on the outside. Later, you change more on the inside. But the single changes are often so subtle that you only recognize them after many of them have accumulated.
It’s like being on a journey and adjusting your course.
At one point, you will not encounter totally new territories but still will find new things to explore and learn about you if that’s what you want.
We Used to Be More Fluid
Sometimes we forget where we are coming from.
As children, we could be anything, at least in our illusions. One moment, we were Superman; the other, we wanted to be a gynecologist. Speaking of my own experience here, hehehe....
The thing is that we didn’t think so much in boxes. We didn’t bother too much to know who we are. Instead, we wanted to conquer the world and have fun.
If we were told to walk barefoot through the snow every day to become the tough guy who can climb the highest mountains, we would do exactly that.
And if nobody told us what to do, we would try and figure things out. We only needed to believe things were possible. And in vivid illusions, everything was possible unless someone talked us out of it or called us stupid or whatnot.
The older we get, the stronger our beliefs become. We made our experiences. We know what worked and what didn’t.
The stronger those beliefs, the more rigid and static we become. At one point, we may fall into the trap again of thinking pretty well about who we are.
And we might be even totally right with that.
But still, it might be more fun to find out where we can walk from there instead of remaining standing where we are.
Self-Knowledge Should Give You Freedom
Knowing yourself is a starting point to have an even better idea of what you want to do with your life.
As a child, we imagine we can be everything. Later we learn that we might not be built to become a world-class swimmer, cyclist, or never be able to crack a nut as elegantly as a squirrel. Simply because we are not a squirrel...
But once we know where we are standing, we have a map in our hands that is not completely white anymore. From where we stand, we can choose a direction. And that’s where true freedom lies.
Without a map and no idea of who we are, we may just float around in life and be carried by its tides. In this scenario, life would be nothing but an endless movie. Neither could we change it nor could we walk out of the cinema. Because for that we would need to know where we are in the cinema and then choose a direction.
Long story short, learning about your personality makes sense as long as it helps you to find a direction in life.
Don’t be too fixated on being an INFJ. Maybe that’s where you are currently standing. But maybe you don’t want to be trapped in all the things INFJs typically experience.
Before You Go…
This was the final part of the INFJ Healing Series.
The next episode will be something new, something a dear and long-time reader has proposed that I write about.
That being said, if you want me to write more about a certain topic, just let me know in the comments below. It's your chance to get even more of what you enjoy reading.
I loved that last bit. When I found a framework that put into words all of the things I had been feeling, it felt liberating. Identifying with xNFJ never really helped me with direction or growth. That was a journey I had to figure out on my own. Mbti was just essential in providing the explanation behind my behavioral patterns. I especially enjoyed how the underlying framework helped me to understand why I got along well with others, and helped me to see how different people view different things differently. Anywho, I like how you implied that heavily identifying with rigid labels can hurt our capacity for deeper understanding and limit our capabilities. This is so true. Thanks for sharing.
Loved this, thanks for sharing.