Dear friends,
It’s been a long time––and for that, I apologise. I’ve been reading through your many comments and the number of well-wishes and general positive sentiments not only surprised me, but reminded how many of you are still watching patiently (both for your own posts to be published and for words from me). In particular, I was moved by how many of you found meaning here.
That said, I want to break the silence that’s been hanging over The Book Addict’s Guide for so long.
So, what does the future look like?
New Commitment From Me
First off––I am committing to be present here. I did previously make an attempt to return before I was really ready, but this time, I’m making a commitment to be here. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to be as present as I once was when I was healthy. However, I’m going to be setting aside regular time specifically to put towards you and our wee community.
To make sure it actually does happen this time, I’ve made a plan of action.
The Fate of Your Submissions
I’m going to start first with your writing, slowly sifting through that massive backlog of wonder that you all have left me. And gradually, your writing will see light.
While I’m playing catch up, submissions will temporarily close. I’m only one person, and part of the reason I didn’t return successfully in my last attempt was that I didn’t make it doable enough for myself.
Changes & Housekeeping
When eventually, the wreckage has cleared enough that I re-open the submissions, it’s likely that I’ll change a number of things about the process, so keep your ears open for news of that.
Behind the scenes, I’m also going to re-visit and update the site policies, FAQ, organization and other such things. As I do so, I’ll be brainstorming ideas for new content.
Where Have I Been?
While many of you have lurked here with me for many years and know something of why I’ve disappeared, some of you have walked in on a confusingly empty room. For that, you have only me to blame.
I’ve been in Hades, and by that I mean dealing with some rather complex health challenges. Some of these challenges I’ve grown accustomed to, learned how to adapt my life around and ultimately taught myself to manage. Others have about six heads, and do not want to be caught, named or looked in the eye. They’re not going anywhere (besides down), so invariably, there will be bumps in the road that will sometimes affect my response times on this site.
Whatever time decides, I’m thankful for your patience, support and general excitement about MTBI. I’m looking forward to many moons of shared geekery.
-Arvid
The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI: 
Hey Arvid
Firstly, I’m so sorry about your health condition, I’m currently battling long-covid so I can imagine the rage & frustration. I don’t know the details of your condition, but your chronic health issues might stem from Limbic Impairment syndrome like mine.
I’ve found this program on a covid support group for athletes, and it seems promising. It’s a bit of mumbo jumbo for my Te tbh, but the science seems legit & I’ll do anything to improve my symptoms.
I’m still early in the course so I can’t say if this is legit or bogus. But there’s a 7-day free trial on the first chapter if you’re interested to check it:
https://retrainingthebrain.com/
I hope the program could help you recover man
Cheers,
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Sorry to hear of your health struggles. I can’t imagine it’s been easy adding long-covid on top of that. Thanks for the information––I haven’t looked into limbic impairment syndrome, but it does seem to match some of the other things relating to my health.
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Arvid,
I’m an INFP and I read your “Are INFPs Poor Leaders?” article. Your article is wrong. We’re just as good of leaders as any other type, and there are several situations where we’re the best leaders of any type. There’s a huge area of life where INFPs and INFJs are the natural leaders that goes totally unaddressed in your article. That area isn’t the government, business, the military, athletics or the sciences. It’s in religion and spirituality. In any traditional society, you’re going to find a huge amount of these two types in the priestly classes. Even in purely secular contexts, the adjective “priestly” gets applied to INFP and INFJ pretty often. Being a religious leader involves giving counsel and care to parishioners (more INFJ) and holding the line on moral values in a vehement, forceful way, with no regard to pragmatism, and even at the risk of death (more INFP).
In Western Europe before 1054 A.D., these two types were overrepresented among the Bishops, the Priests, the Abbots, the Monastics, and so on. In the Orthodox East, their overrepresentation has never stopped being the case. It’s easy to look at the Saints of the Church and spot the INFPs and INFJs among them. The Apostle John was probably an INFP. For a more recent example, look at Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934-1982), the California-born monastic who founded and led a monastery, was an ordained priest, and became a thought-leader akin to Billy Graham, because of his voluminous and incredibly insightful books and articles on a wide variety of spiritual, historical, cultural etc. issues. He was also almost certainly an INFP too.
I’m adamant that a big reason why so many people in the West think religion is either irrelevant/unimportant, or flat-out evil, is because INFPs and INFJs are not in charge of it. The Pentecostal sects for example prefer loud-mouthed anti-intellectual extroverts as their “leaders. A bad fit. We’ve essentially become rulers deprived of our thrones.
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These are great points, Monadnock, and you’re right––INFPs do make great counselors and religious leaders. I especially like your theory that religion would be taken more seriously if INFPs and INFJs held more leadership positions within it.
The main reason I didn’t explore this topic in the article was that I was responding to a question that was specifically asking about military leaders, politicians, and the like. I focused my answer on what the question seemed most bent on understanding.
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Welcome back! I had assumed you had abandoned this site and moved on but I’m happy you’re back.
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I hope anything of what I’ve said so far hasn’t been hard to follow?
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Since I live with an INFP I am rather used to following a similar type of thought process, so not at all.
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Great.
One interesting thing that can happen with infps is empathy problems. I find it very difficult to grasp someone’s perspective without clear communication about it. Or to see how someone is feeling in a situation. This has given me problems over the years. (I also don’t naturally understand how people experience being with me, so I ask, as I did here.) Im a very feeling and genuinly good hearted person who cares and wants the best but i have difficulty with interpreting peoples reactions and behaviors, though im not at all autistic. Have you noticed empathy problems like this in infps? Did you experience difficulty interpreting people when you were younger?
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Many intjs really struggle with that. Sherlock is a Great example. However, the more highly developed an INTJ’s Se function is, the better they get at reading people. I experienced a great deal of trauma in childhood and interpreting other people’s emotions became a survival mechanism for me. My lower functions developed more quickly than normal as a result. I rely heavily on the combination of my Ni, Se and Te for reading people, and I have only occasionally been wrong in adulthood. My Se pays close attention to what’s happening in my physical space while I interact with people. What’s their body language like, what’s their tone of voice, what items have they got with them, how are other people reacting to them etc. My Ni intuits things based off of that information, and my Te logically picks apart the information to draw conclusions.
My ISTJ sibling is very bad at reading people, though, and is often surprised when I have a completely different experience of an interaction than they do. Their Ne function is still underdeveloped, so they’re not yet intuiting things about people.
I find that it can be common for INFPs to overuse their lower Si function when trying to interpret social situations. The dominant Fi can make them prone to social anxiety to varying degrees, and that anxiety leads them to over-analyse situations without being able to narrow down what actually happened. Ne ends up coming up with all the possible ways the other person could have been feeling without coming to any conclusions. I do think more experience helps with this. Si catalogues what has generally been the case in the past, and as you gain more life experience, and hear more about other people’s experience, it becomes easier to guess how other people might be experiencing you.
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I’m very sorry about your trauma.
I found enjoyment in a ptsd meme you posted on your Tumblr a while back about the graphics not being good while disacociating and related to it. The graphics are terrible when one disacociates. It’s still darkly funny to me now.
I never would have thought inferior Se would be good for that, it makes sense. That sounds like a very full on personality change/survival mechanism and I’m sorry that you had to develop so drastically.
Yes I definitely tend to overuse my Si with interpreting situations with people. I relate to how you described the first three functions working together to be unproductive with social interpretation. As a young infp I am incredibly unproductive in almost all areas and definitely relate to it.
In a way I learnt to interpret people similar to how you describe you do it as a survival mechanism for trauma, but it is only present during hypervigilance and only useful as a guide for what might be going on or about to happen, rather than something more conclusive like what you experience. I am distinctly aware of the small details like tone of voice and body language but I don’t know what they mean very often.
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It is what it is.
I imagine being unproductive is frustrating for your Te. I know my infp struggles with wanting to have goals but not quite being able to meet them always. I think it’s easy for infp’s Ne to try to grow in too many ways at once, which isn’t usually as effective as prioritizing a few things at a time
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Yes, it is what it is.
It certainly is frustrating. The te is an almost constant inkling for me of what I should be doing and wanting me to be productive. Ne and Te sometimes seem opposing forces, and it’s a fine balance to get them to work together. Oh yes, goals are extremely difficult. It’s not like they’re impossible but I feel like it takes a lot of knowing oneself to figure out how to be productive as an INFP. I wouldn’t be surprised if most INFPs don’t start achieving things until young adulthood at earliest.
I’ve just learnt that any goal I make is usually a guideline and one has to learn to be okay with that.
Also, I wouldn’t want to clog the comments up here, this is your update post, and I’m uncomfortable having my words here right where visitors cam see. I’d rather we continue this conversation in the comments of my article when it comes out, if that’s okay with you. Consequently, I won’t respond until it’s published, I will read your reply. Guten tag!
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Thank you. I’m grateful for your reply. Those things’ll help I’m sure. I”ve started already and it made a difference.
Good luck for whatever you do next. I hope things go as well as they can.
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I was thinking, in the way of mbti geekery, are there questions you’ve wanted to ask an INFP?
On this blog there doesn’t seem to be much dialogue where you’re not being asked questions and providing the information, so are there any questions I might be able to answer for some interesting discussion? …sometime.
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That’s thoughtful of you. At present, I live with an INFP and it’s been interesting to see the differences in the way that we live and work. I would be interested to know what types of responses from others (asking for an intj) have the strongest positive influence on your self esteem when you’re struggling.
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Oh that is a good question! So far it’s been the support and help of an ENTP friend which has made the most difference. His blurbs over time have almost completely turned around my poor self image. Generally, INFPs will be very grateful for real attention and listening, that shows to them they matter enough to you for you to give them that real attention, and it makes a positive difference in their self esteem, (if they’re not too upset to be unable to think of it, which sometimes happens. Ive been really woeked up a few times and until i can think.more clearly a “Hey, hey. Its okay.” Helps to calm me. What makes the biggest direct difference is logical sincear counters to the crappy things I think or believe about myself and my place in the world. Paragraphs, reasoning me out of it. But with love and kindness, not that harsh condescending vibe thinkers have used with me in the past.
Personaly, I hate the cliche extroverted feeler answers like “You matter! Don’t feel bad about yourself! You’re amazing!”
Those do not help at all, and move me to disgust at the person saying them, (not that intjs are likely to say that stuff). So for the sake of all that is good and holy instruct others to not use that around infps. Speak your feelings if you love the infp with poor self esteem. Tell them directly their impact on your life, be sincear and truthful. Make them see that they’re not what they think they are. Tap into the Fi to get them to talk about their problem, listen to them properly before responding. There’s nothing worse than not being able to finish when I need to talk. The Ni might be useful in mentioning things about them you noticed that your infp has never talked about. I really appreciate when people show that they’ve noticed me and payed attention to me, especially when they put effort into mentioning certain problems I’ve indirectly exprpessed/manifested. Tap into their Ne by bringing up multiple reasons why they’re wrong about themselves. (As you likely know, you have to be gentle with this part, and all parts of this process because pointing out how they’re wrong in a harsh not-understanding way can lead them to feeling crappy about how they feel crappy. “The fact that it bothers me bothers me also.”) Don’t be afraid to nut it out and have a long conversation with them about all of this, (oh gosh this is turning into an instruction article…) because that will make a positive difference too. We love attention, sincear attention. Apeal to their Fi, their Ne. (If you can’t appeal to their Fi properly because you don’t know how to so well, Ne and the other functions will do, so long as you listen when they have something to say and do not ever shame them for their unreasonablness. They will loose trust in you, withdraw, and that’ll ruin your hard work. Be understanding and somewhat gentle and provide multiple reasons for why they matter/are wrong about themselves. Ask them why they believe it. What experiences tought them this stuff? Who told them the things they tell themselves? (Si). Be direct and straightforward and speak your mind and tell them (if you love them, which you probably do to some degree if you’re gonna help them like this) that you love them. That they matter to you. That they really do, that they matter in the world. That you see them differently and that others do. Present a logical argument to them and be inteligent. Of all the things the infp has logiced their way into, (mature infps should value intelect and logic highly), they’ve logiced this. They have thight about it and reasoned their way into whatever hole theyre in, because we are not satisfied with just feelings. Use your Te to apeal to their Te. Acknowledge their faults and their wounds and how they’re an extremely flawed person as well as the good worthy thongs about them. If you and them are Christian or believe this stuff, remind them of their value in the eyes of God. Ut likely theyve heard insatisfactory cliches relating to God and love, so be concious about that.Don’t be afraid to get poetic about any of this stuff, but be concious not to overload it, depending on the level of your relationship with your infp and their standards, theres going to be a limit to the level of this kind of stuff they can take over which you should not go. But some poeticness should help as it apeals to the Fi and Ni and takes them out of themselves into higher things. Some subtle manipulation is perfectly fine and appreciated at times. My ENTP has changed my perspective on life through a series of direct and indirect interactions. One time he went nuts over some tadpoles in order to get me to cheer up and share some enthusiasm for life and small good things. After it settled down, I realised what he had done, and appreciated it a lot. Manipulation for good is perfectly fine in my view and so go ahead and try it along with the other things I mentioned. If you’re not in a state to do paragraphs worth of talking or writing to them, just tell them sincearly that they matter and that they’re wrong. Address their specific issues and the big picture of them, but you don’t have to go too deep or wordy. That was extremely long, ahem, it should do the trick to some degree. Thank you for that interesting question. God bless you and the infp. (Also don’t over think this, it’s not that complicated. Ok it is lol, but if you’re inclined to stress about it don’t worry, you’re probably fully equipped for it already.)
Bear in mind I wrote this for an INTJ seeking to turn an INFPs whole poor self image around. Such a process should be worked on over time. Do not expect lofty results quickly, if lofty results are your aim. You or whoever you’re asking this for might not be after such big results, and you shouldn’t go full ham on this kind of stuff with us mediators. But some of the things I listed should help in smaller doses if you just want to give your INFP a hand. I could write a whole series if articles on this but I’ll keep it to the something hundred words it already is. Sorry if you were looking for something quick and handy. You might have noticed by now that we can be super wordy at the wrong times.
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I feel compeled to apologize for how long that was, I got carried away. Sorry mate :/
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No need—I genuinely found it helpful. You very clearly elucidated some of the cracks in my approach.
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I appreciate the depth you went into. I definitely tend to jump straight to the logic strategy of trying to disprove xxFPs negative view of themselves and I’ve gotten pushback on that more than once, probably because I don’t always do it in an Ne-accessible way. My Ni I definitely zeros in on things they aren’t actually able to notice, which just makes them feel even worse.
Oh goodness though, your reaction to Fe responses is relatable. I prefer Fi users when it comes to discussing my feelings because why make it harder for myself than it has to be? I do have a number of xNFJ friends who are sufficiently mature as to recognize that some people need very customized responses when they express pain.
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Also, if you would like to turn this into a post, I would be happy to publish it on this blog, I won’t be upset if you’re not feeling up to that.
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That’s good. :) Good luck on those cracks.
Oh there would be other reasons you get pushback, I’m sure, but the conflict between Ne and Ni is probably part of it. I imagine you see different elements they didnt pick up on that just add to the overwhelming picture. For myself an INFP, Ne can be rather overwhelming when faced with something that I can’t dismis, something that has many complicated multifaceted elements. Self esteem is like this. Ni seems to deal with it much better, especially combined with Te. But Ne wooshes. The best thing would be both intergrated. Yes, they’ll feel worse for not noticing it; because you’re focusing on it they’ll think it’s important, and your rational logical approach might make them feel worse still because they wish they were as intellectual and reasonable about this. Dominant Fi is a hard life; almost everybody else seems more rational, which they probably are. I gather you’re equipped to make a positive difference anyway, regardless of whatever complications arise, it just takes time. Does this INFP require gentleness or are they the harsh type like Nine, if I may ask?
Hah! I haven’t had much experience with both, but Fi users would probably work better for me too. Why make it harder for myself than it has to be, exactly! The world goes through different stages; now is the time of Fe, and Si has had it’s time. Poor Dominant Si.
Does auxiliary F in others work better for you when talking about your emotions and personal things with them?
I didn’t think you’d be upset XD Of course, I would love to post on your blog. How tidy do you want it? I suppose you’ll set up the appropriate channels for me to submit, seeing as submissions are closed now.
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That makes sense. This INFP needs a lot of gentleness. They can get pretty fired up at other people, but usually it’s when they feel someone else is being unfair or unkind toward them. They seem to respond well to expressions of understanding—or that someone else is on their side even if they don’t understand.
I honestly think it’s too bad that so many Fi some wish they were a thinking type because they are some of my all-time favourite people to be around.
I most prefer to talk about my feelings with IxFPs over other IxTJs because it’s less typical for IxTJs yo have a well-developed Fi function, and I find that development particularly key in how seen/heard I feel during a conversation about difficult things. At the moment, I also have a fair number of other types in my life who are mature enough that I’ve had good experiences with them too. Of late, those have included an ESTJ, two INFJs and an ISTP, most of which are Fe users. The ESTJ and ISTP are less typical in that they’ve both been through loads of therapy and consequently worked on their F functions. I only have one other IxTJ in my life—my youngest sibling—who is 8 years my younger and not especially equipped for helping other people with their feelings. I would be interested to talk to a more mature IxTJ in person to see what it’s like.
And yes—I will set up a way for you to submit, though it might take me a few days to get round to. As for polishing, just write it the best you can. What’s most important is clarity. I will run it through a quick editing session to catch any minor grammatical errors, since we all make them. Even T doms aren’t computers.
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Yes.
Theyll appreciate it. Harsh people are… draining. Real genuine not silly gentleness is a relaxarion from the constant pressure to be unemotional and detatched. Someone understanding me is one of the best things that can happen to me, I long to be seen and wanted, which is a fundamental desire but I think infps have an especially strong longing for it. Being able to freely just be a feeler is so relieving. Because analytical types have a tendency to not speak their analysis out loud, it can be easy to forget that they’re paying attention. When they show that they are, and have been all along it makes a big difference. If you see their pain don’t be silent about it. Please do not silently watch them. They need to know you’re paying attention, even if you haven’t emotionally connected to the things you’ve noticed. And knowing of your attention could help with their self esteem too.
Really? That’s wonderful! I’ve been ashamed of my feelerness since I was old enough to notice other people aren’t like me in that. I think others feel this too and it’s too bad that people act like thinkers are better, even in non mbti settings. It seems like we’re not as respected as others. The exasperating stereotypes are bad enough without irl mocking. Why are they some of your favourite? I think I can guess based off things you’ve indicated before, but I’m not sure.
Yeah that makes sense. So does therapy tend to help with F functions?
Have you ever VCd an IxTJ to see what it’s like? Yeah.
Interesting. You seem to have a diverse range of types in your life.
Okay, cool. I won’t have it ready for a couple weeks probably anyway. We’ll thank God for that xD imagine how inconvenient that would be on so many levels.
This dialog is very interesting. Thank you for such communication!
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My theory is that the world started idolizing logic and hating emotion as a result of the enlightenment in the 18th c. and has never fully recovered. The extent to which we culturally reject feelings is toxic. It’s leads to feeling people feeling ostracized and logical people not growing.
The reasons I love many IxFPs are too many to expound in one comment, but I’ll share a few. They often tend to be very authentic about who they are, which I always appreciate. Nothing irks me like a fake person. They’re often very giving with their time and attention as well, and not because of social expectations, but just because they want to be / believe it’s right, and that’s become a rare thing in today’s world. Being around them also helps me be a better person because they give me pause to think about how my actions affect other people. They also add a bit of spontaneity to my otherwise very scheduled life, which has led to fun experiences I wouldn’t have had on my own.
My understanding is that therapy can help all functions as long as the person in therapy is committed to doing the work. If they’re not, what’s the point? For me, it’s helped the most with my Fi and Se functions.
I’m not familiar with what VCd means unfortunately.
Of course!
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Hey thats a good theory. I’ll resist the urge to expound my Ne opinions about that but it’s interesting.
Ho gosh yes, it’s awful. Now we’re entering a stage where it’s commonly either accept emotion as the ultimate thing in life or hold to a toxic rejection of it. It’s very hard to maintain and reach a steady true perspective on it, and have the right balance in one’s life. All of this is very difficult. Extremely challenging for young feelers to emerge into.
That’s interesting. It’s nice to hear those positive things about us, and how we affect you. Thank you for the honesty you have employed so far in communicating with me, it isn’t like super amazing or whatever but it’s kind of an honor to be dealt with honestly and somewhat openly because my experience so far is that people are close and reluctant to explain their experience and perspectives. I suppose this is part of the truth game?
If you’d like me to stop asking questions relating to you just give the word. It’s interesting, so that’s why I’m doing it. I’d be like this with most people of I could.
Ahh. Okay. Interesting.
A VC is a video call, I abrieviated “video called” to VCd.
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The truth game indeed! It’s certainly gotten me into a fair amount of trouble over the years, but the relationship transparency is worth it to me.
Your questions aren’t a bother at all. I’ve quite enjoyed them, and you’ve got me thinking about some things in new ways.
Ah, that makes sense.
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First off, greetings and good wishes. You must have had a very hard run. My mother has fibromyalgia and other chronic health issues, which in no way allows me to know anything really about what it’s like, but I do know it is a tremendous load and in an odd sort of way I rejoice for your presence here again because it means you’re doing better or managing better, or have more time, which is all good.
You’ve changed a lot, I imagine. For one, you called your minions dear friends. Do you think you’re still the same person that started this blog?
It’ll be interesting to see the difference in your tone and posts compared to how you communicated through posts and comments in the past.
I have a lot of questions about various topics but I guess it’s better to ask them when the official questions place here opens again? God bless.
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Greetings to you as well! I appreciate the good wishes. You’re write to imagine that I’ve changed. I’ve learned new ways of being, which comes with knowing new levels of hell, but also with getting out of my comfortable INTJ social-isolation box and developing my ability to connect with other humans. That’s not to say I’m good at it, but I value it more than I did previously. Connection is a kind of rare treasure that’s hard to get when you’re introverted and ill, but it’s reason enough to keep going.
I’ve also learned to slow down more, to take time to breathe, to sit and watch a candle flicker, or rain slipping off the window sill.
I’d love to hear your questions, but (full disclosure) it may be some time before I get to them—which in no way reflects my interest in them.
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Apologies for my late reply, I was under the impression it had sent when I first typed it up.
New levels of hell tend to do that to people. Its interesting to se how much the human oerson really can endure when forced to it. How did you learn to get out of your comfortable intj social isolation box; was it really that comfortable?
It is reason enough to keep going. Your comment is wholesome and heartening. Thank you for responding in a personal way, it surprises me, and I wonder at how you mentioned those things you learnt without me asking directly about them. Is such communication part of the connection thing for you?
I need to learn how to do those things more, and to enjoy them, and allow myself to have full moments of such rest and experience. Do you have any advice about that for people who can’t let themselves stay in one spot when they start to get comfortable? For people who constantly move from one thing to another and don’t let themselves stop to slow down and breathe and watch rain and candles?
Alright, I’ll keep that in note.
Also, I’m glad to hear those things. They’re good. :)
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The social isolation was comfortable, but it had grown to be harmful to me in that it prevented me from getting health needs met and also decreased my overall growth as a human. I genuinely think that any MBTI type who forces themself outside of whatever comfort zone they are in is capable of significant growth.
Yes—communication is definitely part of the connection thing. Sure, it’s possible to connect without language, but it’s much harder to get anywhere that way. For a while, I was in a kick where I watched YouTube videos about social development and conversation tips, and have since been practicing what I learned when I can.
I think my advice would be twofold. First, remind yourself often of the reasons why you want to slow down. For me those include (among others):
– increased intuitive power by allowing me to stop and hear more fully what me instincts are saying
– burnout prevention/management
– less brain fog (your brain works better with adequate rest), thus, increased task efficiency
Reminding myself of these things makes it significantly easier to convince myself to take breaks.
Then, literally schedule the breaks into your life. This may look different for you than it does for me, but for me, this means:
– Leaving deliberate blank space in my daily planner despite the urge to fill it up
– Forcing myself to pause for lunch/dinner and actually eat something without multi-tasking
– Maintaining firm boundaries around when I am available to other people and how many tasks I agree to do for/with others in a given time span. These can be as specific as not accepting any phone calls after 8pm, or as vague as “accepting fewer” delegated work tasks this week.
-Literally blocking in self-care tasks such as taking a shower or in my planner
Keep in mind, this advice is coming entirely from my own personalised regimen and may need to be similarly personalised for you to get the full benefit
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That advice seems to be too particular to yourself and how you do your life to work with me, but thanks. I don’t have a daily planner and the few times I do I rarely keep to it. Maybe when I’m older and more organized it’ll be more applicable. I do have something you could give advice on that might be more beneficial though. What might an INFP do to take them out of their comfort zone for personal development/growth? If you’d like a more ambitious suggestion, what about a list of ways to go out of one’s comfort zone for each function?
A full answer to this comment might require something of an article length, so I understand if you don’t get around to answering fully, (or at all).
I went through a phase of watching conversation tips as well, it was mortifying.
May I ask, are you still a freelance writer? You’re done with uni?
Any blogs out there kind of like this one?
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I might at some point be able to make a full post about this topic, but I’ll give you a short version here (since it may be a long time before I catch up on all the questions in the Ask An INTJ Anything queue).
A few ways to develop the Fi function include spending more time thinking about other people’s feelings and finding ways to improve the way your actions affect or don’t affect them, and practicing outwardly expressing feelings that are uncomfortable for you (so the social skills practice can definitely come in handy there).
For Ne, and this is specifically for FiNe (so NFPs), it can be beneficial to pay attention to how Ne thought-jumps can be confusing for other types and then try to find ways to make your ideas more accessible to them when you speak/write. Other ways to develop Ne include leaning into your creativity in areas where you may not have applied it as much, or where you may be repressing it (for example, at work, or in a specific relationship).
For Si, spend time working through thoughts and emotions surrounding uncomfortable or traumatic past experiences and apply things you’ve learned to your present.
For Te, learn organisation and time management skills, and consider thinking about how your creativity could involve more action (are there dreams you haven’t pursued because you’re too scared, for instance?). Hopefully that’s a more useful answer than my last one.
As to your other questions, I am still freelance writing, and as part of that I manage several other blogs on various topics, though mostly for clients and consequently they’re all quite different from this one. I also have a fair amount of creative writing in circulation that seems so be doing alright for itself. And yes—while I did have to take a few years away from uni for my health, I did eventually finish my Master’s degree. I’m still undecided as to whether I want to do a PhD. Most of my goals at the moment are directly related to my physical and mental health.
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The eh… replying in line system doesn’t seem to be so flash here.
Ah, what things have I got you thinking about in new ways?
I tried the truth game, or I at least considered it when I first read one of your posts back in July. Relationship transparency is greatly worth it. I found this when discussing our position with my intj. I never knew that it could be so relieving to know exactly where you stand and to voice your unspoken regard for someone.
Unfortunately my principles about truth have caved, as have my other ones and I find my Fi greatly stagnant these past few weeks. I don’t know what is important to me any more and I cannot think about it. I am disconnected from my own emotions and my own internals and it’s bothering me. I have no idea why, as I’m usually very in tune. It feels as if I have become defective. Perhaps it is some kind of dissociation. Does this ring any bells to anything you know about, and do you ahve any advice? It’s fine if you don’t. I would like to stop being defective. The cogs have broken and i know it isn’t supposed to be this way but I can’t look into myself to understand. I would not normaly ask someone this. Apologies if such vulnerability is improper somehow.
Good wishes for your existance.
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Mostly I’m considering the alternate approaches to helping my infp that you mentioned.
Since I don’t know all the details of your life, it’s difficult to say why exactly this is happening to you. On the surface it sounds like there may be some mental health troubles stirring, and if you don’t normally have them, it could be an acute problem. I think we all crumble at some point in our lives and it’s an opportunity to work through and grow as a person. I think it’s often helpful in times like that to find ways to viscerally remind yourself why you value the things you feel distant from. Getting to the bottom of why it’s happening is likely going to yield the most fruitful results. If you don’t know why something is happening, you can’t solve the problem. And if the fog is too thick to get through on your own, it can be helpful to talk to someone close to you or even a therapist who’s trained in these matters.
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I see.
Most of that has been said to me before without results, but the “viscerally remind yourself why you value the things you feel distant from” is new. Thanks for that response.
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Welcome back friend :) I’m one of those sorry souls who would regularly check back on this blog to see if you or someone had posted. You had a great thing going and I’m glad you decided to commit to posting despite your health issues. Of all the things going wrong in the world today, it’s nice to have this brief escape from reality and all its complexities. Here’s to great writing 🥂 and better health (hopefully).
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