I know we are all sensitive to various degrees. Reading this may help you understand yourself more or understand someone else, my guess is that you fit in this category in one way or another. Actually, I think everyone is highly sensitive about something. My dogs are highly sensitive somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. if they don’t get their food, I’m going to be highly pestered. The most emotionally insensitive person will be highly sensitive if they feel insulted or taken advantage of. So, yes, you are, I’m certain, highly sensitive in some aspects of your life.
An INFJ is a the rarest of rare in human personality when taking the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. (you can test yourself at https://www.personalitypathways.com) It is also I guess because of this, it’s become popularized. Highly sensitive people, are they born this way or made? I know I was born with flaming red locks, and blue eyes. I didn’t need to be made anymore rare or weird. At 1% of the populace, I’m a walking recessive genotype already.
If you are an INFJ, and you took the Myers-Briggs test, my bet is that you just nodded your head and said to yourself, “Yup, I already knew this.” So if you feel you are, there’s usually no need to test yourself.
So, since I’ve become quite experienced in my fifty years of enjoying the show, I thought maybe I could share some of the secrets of living as an INFJ that could maybe help others either enjoy the ride a bit more or understand that INFJ person in your life that you don’t quite understand:
- Our nervous systems are wired in a different way. It’s a double edged sword. There’s a lot of good in that and some not so good in that. For some of us we cannot wear anything on our necks, it feels like we are being choked. One necklace, and on special occasions maybe two tops. A turtleneck? Forget about it, no way! Materials we wear are usually important, anything scratchy, or too tight is pure torture. We thrive in simplicity. For this reason, you also won’t see us wearing loud colors all together or many prints. We like simplicity in color schemes and lean toward natural colors
- Busy surroundings are fun, but only for a short time. Lots of people around us can be overstimulating, irritating, and are great in short amounts of time. At times we can hear several conversations going on at once. That becomes like a buzz in our brains. We need time to recuperate after being in crowds.
- Our homes are our happy places. We prefer a lot of alone time, NEED alone time, but that doesn’t mean we cannot be happy away. Speaking of home, we need our homes to be quiet a lot of the time. and tidy, although since we are in our heads 99% of the time, home can get messy quickly if we don’t have a routine or cleaning service.
- We can get caught up in emotions, and regular emotional strategies do not typically work for highly sensitive people. We are not depressed, but since so many people do not understand the INFJ, people can incorrectly believe we are depressed because we need to withdraw ourselves to regain our strength.
- We don’t like to watch the gory stuff on TV or in movies.
- We don’t like being told we are over-sensitive. We already know it.
- We live to help other people. We are the caregivers, and the over-givers. We want everyone to feel happy, sometimes at our own expense.
Doesn’t sound too advantageous now does it? But it is! Trust me on this. Now that I’ve gone over all the crappy parts, here’s how I handle the inner-crazy.
- I know I feel a bit more, I embrace that and just realize it’s okay. I haven’t been able to fix it, I’m not going to fix it, and I was made this way for a good reason.
- Dump the negative draining people in your life or limit the time with them. INFJ’s tend to sadly attract narcissists. They naturally gravitate to those that will gratefully take on their battles and make them their own. Which brings me to….
- Know what is your problem and what is someone else’s problem. If you didn’t make the problem, it isn’t your’s to fix. Yes, we love to help, but boundaries are your friend.
- Focus on the positive, I write a gratitude list every single day. I find that doing this before going to sleep is the perfect time. It helps my subconscious mind to work as I’m sleeping on the positive. Where attention goes, energy flows!
- Before you leave the comfort solitude of your space, have a way out. If you are going somewhere, have a way to leave on your own terms. The noise or over stimulation of being in an uncomfortable space, can easily take days to heal from.
- When someone says they have feedback for you or a critique, stop them and have them put it in writing for you to review. If someone decides to critique you, you will instantly go into high-overthinking mode. You will want to try to over-do, over-work, over-sacrifice to fix the problem. On a side note: This is the narcissist’s way to suck you into fixing their issues for them. They criticize you to put you on the defense, and BAM!, you’re now hooked again. Red flag!
- Have routines that are set in stone. Without this every tiny decision you make will be difficult. Why? Because you don’t want to hurt anyone or be perceived as selfish. Too many choices for an INFJ can be a nightmare.
- You pick up every little nuance about every single person’s preferences in work situations and emotional situations. That can cause you to be a perfectionist. To other’s this can seem obsessive and controlling. Remember not everything in life is going to be perfect. When we want perfection, it’s easy to just quit, don’t quit just get it done.
- Remember that small annoyances for you, are normal for everyone else. A tapping pen or foot to you can seem like an earthquake. Headphones are your friend as are earplugs.
- Don’t hide! Every book I’ve ever read about highly sensitive people leans towards this personality type embracing not being in crowds and to go ahead and be the wall-flower. One of the greatest parts of being an INFJ is that although introverted, we don’t ever appear that way. We can be the life of the party, the person unafraid to do public speaking, and some of the most outgoing people on the planet. Some of the most inspiring (and some of the worst) movers and shakers of humanity. You may have heard of some of them, so her’es a list of other weirdos like me:
Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Evangeline Lilly, Cate Blanchett, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Landon, Lady GaGa, Pharrell Williams, Adam Sandler, Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Billy Crystal, Elenor Roosevlet, Thomas Jefferson, Prince, Carry Fisher, Osama bin Laden, Noam Chomsky, George Harrison, John Coltrane.
Some of them we wish stayed home, but most changed the world for the better!
Blessings,