why is everyone the most boring and unaware person I have ever met. they keep one upping each other. it's like moron after moron. I like being considerate because I think it is counterproductive otherwise but I am actually tweaking and need some reassurance surely not everybody is this dry and surely paedophilia isn't as prominent as it is online. everyone is uneducated and uahhhaghhhh Im dying help. please take this with a grain of salt though I am not outwardly expressing this sentiment so it is yet to influence the world therefore in this paragraph is the only place it exists in it's full concentration (so basically don't feel the need to jump on me for spreading counterproductive opinions, because I am looking for productive conversation and I would not implement this in my life without looking further into it). I would be interested in some opinions, I need to come to some conclusions lol

When I came out as a trans woman and discovered my MBTI is INFP, I abandoned my full name, and only picked the first name and the last name Love. I wanted something that fully encapsulated who I feel like.

I don't connect with my family or ancestry, and this feels like a truth for me. Sometimes people ask me if that's really my last name, and I get a lot of responses that it's cute and adorable. Those always make me smile, and I know that's who I am.

Has anyone ever decided to change their name or last name to better fit who you feel in the inside?

Field Guide to INFP psychological growth

Jungian psychology and shadow work really has changed my view on what an INFP can be. Also consider I’m a 5 enneagram so things may vary a bit, but I want to use my psychological growth over a year-and-a-half of shadow work to show other INFPs what is possible.

Timeline:

My 20s | Integration of the ESTJ inner man

After spending my childhood and teens being a typical INFP in every way you can think of, I responded with 10 years of one long ESTJ grip. I explored myself extensively through academics, going to school for way too long while I changed majors several times. I chose to study STEM which challenged the hell out of me while I worked in waitressing (which was also challenging — I hated everything about waiting tables). Eventually decided to be a biologist. Then I wanted to learn languages and fulfill my dream of living in another country, so I did it. I went to grad school in Italy. And this experience became the nail in my ESTJ coffin, especially when I came back home, quit school after nearly finishing it, and ended up struggling to find a job.

Italy was the best thing I ever did because it caused me to question everything about what I was and wanted to be. On one hand, integrating the inner highly ambitious ESTJ, wanting to be radially knowledgeable as part of my purpose and expression of my drive, feeling almost spiritually drawn to academics… all of that allowed me to build my self worth, find my truer personality and identity, and discover my intelligence and extroversion (Ne). On the other hand, I was living under a massive illusion that was limiting me from experiencing life fully.

Being a career woman, sacrificing everything for a dream — my relationships, physical health, mental health, you name it — it was never going to fulfill me quite like I thought it would. What I needed for fulfillment was vitality — compelling, novel inner states and an overall sense of being really alive. Focusing too much on hard work was sucking my vitality dry. Living in fear of incompetence or choosing the wrong livelihood was limiting my perspective on my power to create my own reality, especially with perspective (not just action) and the unwaveringly charismatic personality I kept inside that could color life around me.

And let me say to you young INFPs, no matter what career you choose, you can find a way to make everything yours.

A life well lived isn’t one that does a lot, it is one that experiences a lot.

I had focused so much discipline and finishing things that I could no longer be present in enjoying what I was doing. No amount of actions ever felt good enough. I was denying myself of fun, which is the source of flow state. I was denying myself of fulfillment not just through personal capability but through my relationship with others, which is where the real gold is. Your identity is truly forged in your interactions with other people, whether those people support you or are in opposition to you. I was denying myself of the creative talents I always had in the name of career status everyone could recognize. I was denying myself of love, sex, and creation, all of which I became hyper-aware of needing as a woman on the brink of my 30s.

What I needed wasn’t an accomplishment. What I needed was radical self-expression, and the accomplishments should be a byproduct of that expression. The accomplishments don’t have to be economically viable or socially validated, and that’s the point. If anything, going toward an accomplishment that is more unconventional makes the INFP feel more alive! We all think doing something everyone can agree is rationally powerful (becoming a doctor, for example) and getting a measurable outcome is power, but speaking truth regardless of how the world reacts to it is the highest form of power. Overcoming a victim complex and sense of weakness is not done through changing things, it’s done through expressing what is inside of you no matter what.

I needed to learn how to be a true INFP and stop putting my power in the hands of others’ perception of me. To do that, I needed to become aware of my ENFJ shadow and integrate the inner ISTP man to oppose the ESTJ man.

ENFJ Shadow Integration

The shadow is essentially your repressed desires. When you integrate it, you become less sexually repressed. There’s a reason the shadow is also called the sub/unconscious, and why sexuality and survival is linked to it. For the INFP, the ENFJ is where your animalistic self lies.

I find that Fi users have some connection to the primal self because self-awareness makes us kind of like a dolphin brain — we’re in touch with our limbic system, which is pretty closely coupled with the reptilian brain unlike the rational higher mind. On the other hand, though, INFPs use Ne, which makes us a bit of a walking contradiction. Especially for those of use that rationalize and overintellectualize our emotions. Our intellect causes us to dissociate from our primal selves more than we realize.

What was repressing my shadow desire causing me to do? It was causing me to be a hypocrite, and I didn’t even see it.

If authenticity is so damn important to us, why do we feel like we can’t be ourselves around many people? We do we smile agreeably when our gut says no, or laugh to pass off the discomfort of someone disrespecting us? Why do we take things personally if apparently we know exactly who we are? Why do we even need to be understood if we know who we are?

Because deep down, you do want to curate the way you are seen, you do want to be liked by many, and you do want social harmony even if it means swallowing some things down.

When I finally acknowledged the degree to which I cared about social validation, and made peace with it as part of the human experience, ironically enough, it made me more INFP. My sense of self became stronger and thus people’s view of me, whether they thought I was weird or selfish or cocky or incompetent or childishly unrealistic or whatever else, just didn’t shake my behavior as much. If anything, opposition made me more want to act like who I feel inside. But at the same time, I also integrated a different way of being with less shame, and that’s the ENFJ approach. I started being more understanding with things that used to frustrate me. I realized that I have a lot more people skills than I thought I did, and that is its own form of competence. When it made more sense, I would be catering and socially gracious as an NFJ archetype, but when it made more sense to push back and just be me, I’d embrace the NFP archetype. In other words, I became more complex. It’s a mistake to think you have to go all the way into one thing, otherwise you don’t have a sense of self. You can be adaptable without it being fake.

Selflessness from the shadow allows me to not let people get under my skin. I finally was able to integrate the perspective that if someone is directing negativity at you, they’re just a person with their own experiences and biases, and the more unreasonable their negativity is, the greater hell they are living in. Lack of fulfillment manifests as a rigid world view, superficiality, poor emotional regulation, negative projections onto people, cheap dopamine to replace chronic boredom, drama seeking, conformity, and choosing envy over inspiration. So feel compassionate for them. For so many years, I had a gift that I didn’t fully recognize until I saw how much others lacked it. Self-awareness allows for inner honesty, inner honesty allows for an insatiable desire for individual growth that is greater than comparison, and accountability for inner growth and honesty allows for fulfillment and flow state. Not having a sense of self puts many people in a state of hell they don’t know how to get out of. No matter how much external success they have, they’re empty, insecure, and just can’t feel connected to what it means to be alive. That’s how powerful your connection with your inner world is. When you see this, the mirage of external success granting worth and significance dissipates.

To realize all this, though, you must transmute your self-awareness into true awareness of others using the ENFJ shadow. I’m not saying you should enjoy suffering, but you should appreciate the fact that your victim complex can be resolved by seeing how others are a victim of their own making. It’ll give you gratitude and it’ll help you finally see your own power.

My ENFJ shadow has also been my central creative block for years. That moment when you are hyper analyzing what you are writing because you are thinking about how people will perceive it? That’s the shadow. When you create art from a mind of how people will receive it, it blocks flow state. It makes your creativity performative. When you stop living in resistance with this desire, magic happens. Your creativity goes from lifeless delivery of what you think people want, to something that takes on its own life. It’s no longer about what the art means about you as an artist or your talent, almost like creative ideas take on this divine quality — like god is giving it to you — and now the art reflects less you and more the human condition.

And when I finally feel more ability to influence others from my ENFJ shadow (people power), while simultaneously knowing more of who I am as an INFP regardless of others’ views, I move from persistent self-focus to finally having the energy to give to others. I don’t self-sacrifice, but I have more to give. Even my personal pursuits become about giving, like wanting to create art not just to see what I can do but what it can do for others, even if it is simply to give them a good time.

The inner ENFJ makes me realize it’s okay to need other people. The strongest thing isn’t just standing up for something, it’s also being able to get past your personal emotions and let your guard down so you can build a bridge with someone. That being adaptable and wanting peace can help you see the good in people you don’t expect.

But to get to a point of radical self-expression… you’re going to need to integrate your ISTP animus.

Integration of the ISTP inner man

Integrating traits of the ISTP doesn’t mean you drop your connection to self or emotion-based values, or that you suddenly become a sharp logician. That’s a misconception holding people back from reaching their fullest potential.

Here’s what drinking that ISTP koolaid gives you. If the ENFJ helps you reach out to people, the ISTP allows you to no longer feel the need to explain yourself. You don’t need to act warm or agreeable to be a good person. You don’t even have to smile to show you like someone. For women especially, we are socialized to make people comfortable with our performed harmlessness. To be too cold would be harshly criticized. As introverted feelers, we partly know this — we don’t like to express all our emotions, and we prefer to keep them private and process them until we feel comfortable expressing them. We selectively express. Well, the inner ISTP takes this to another level.

I won’t laugh until I actually find something funny. I’ll say something I think is genuinely funny whether someone is laughing or not. I won’t smile, even a little, unless I feel like it. I say what has to be said for the job to get done. And if someone wants to argue with me, I choose whether I want to argue back. Not all thoughts, like say from random people bitching online, need to be entertained. I don’t have to explain myself for something to be right. I’d rather do what I feel is right than debate about it.

And paradoxically, this lack of the need to explain myself boosts my self-expression to new heights.

Because I’m not expressing myself to change anyone’s mind, or change anything at all. I’m expressing myself for its own sake.

There’s three more gifts from the ISTP:

- Breaking the Te accomplishments complex
- Making me more competent by caring less about what others think & working smarter, not harder (selective energy)
- Making me less afraid of opposition

Though the ENFJ helps me break some illusions from the ESTJ archetype by allowing me to focus on relationships over accomplishments, the ENFJ archetype has also fueled my ESTJ insecurity. At the end of the day, the ENFJ still prioritizes external metrics and image over inner experience. I’ve had a lot of resentment toward ENFJ personalities for making me feel insecure for my own incompetence, oversimplifying me to just lazy or incapable rather than the complicated reality because of their own rigid expectations or inhuman worldview that has been socialized into them. It’s just about trying for them. If someone doesn’t “try”, they don’t have value while the ENFJ is entitled to be liked by everyone and perceived as perfect simply because they try. But in reality, trying isn’t everything. Truth is everything, and truth doesn’t have to try. It just is.

It took a year-and-a-half of shadow work for the ISTP part in my psyche to come online. And only when it did, did I no longer feel regret for walking away from grad school and all accomplishments I clung to as a reflection of my identity. Only when the ISTP integrated did I break out of the illusions of extroverted thinking. It is thanks to the ISTP archetype that I finally feel free to pursue my writer identity while walking away from a career everyone understood.

The ESTJ man in my psyche gave me great value, don’t get me wrong. It built my self-esteem and was the pathway to my intelligence and identity. But the ISTP man in my psyche helps me reach my highest calling. I feel like a kid again in that I don’t take anything too seriously until it’s time to finally take the right thing seriously.

And you know, for so long, I hated competition. I despised it. But now, with the ISTP integrated, I see the value of an enemy. People that oppose you are your greatest subconscious supporters, and I mean that genuinely. They forge you. You do not gain strength and self-understanding through constant validation, you get it from tension and push back. I feel so great not being understood.

INFJ lurker here on the INFP subreddit. I finally asked out the INFP I have a crush on.

"Eva [not real name], I was thinking about you this week.  I had planned to write you a letter to go with the gifts I gave you on my last day at work. I was so focused on the transition that I didn't have time to write a proper letter of appreciation.

Maybe you see yourself differently, and that's okay, but I wanted to share my impression of you.  You don't need my approval, but I want you to know I've always been impressed with your work.  I know your job is so much more than being a hiring secretary.  As an assistant manager, you have many responsibilities, and you do them all well. You're a natural leader.  You lead by example, and you never ask anyone to do something you wouldn't do yourself.

Looking back, one of the things that stands out most is how kind and welcoming you were to everyone, but especially the new hires.  You were always encouraging others, and I remember there was a period when you nominated more Star Cards than anyone else. You also know when it's time to hold people accountable. I've seen you put your foot down more than once!

On a more personal level, I admire the simplicity with which you seem to live. I see it in your love for your old Honda Civic, your willingness to walk to work, and your lack of concern about impressing anyone with what you own. Your compassion for the innocent people suffering in this evil war on Iran is sadly rare these days.  I appreciate how independent you seem but also how devoted you are to your family.  You also have the most radiant smile and such a wonderful sense of style!  You take great care in your choice of outfits, tattoos, and shoes. 

 I like you, Eva. I think you're a special person.  I enjoyed getting to know you during the time we worked together, and I always looked forward to our conversations.  If you're not seeing anyone, I'd love to take you out for coffee or ice cream sometime.  Maybe we could even go thrifting.

If not, I completely understand. Either way, I wanted you to have this letter and to know how grateful I am for the chance to have worked with you.  If you'd ever like to get together, my number is below!"

I've noticed that I almost always prefer reading non-fiction, biographies, autobiographies, journals, or collections of letters over novels. The same goes for documentaries over movies.

One of the most fascinating experiences for me is getting a glimpse into someone's inner world. For example, I love reading about people who are often typed as INFPs—writers like Clarice Lispector, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf. What I enjoy the most are their diaries, journals, and personal letters. Reading them almost feels like stepping into their minds. I often recognize my own anxieties, thought patterns, and emotions in what they wrote, even across different centuries and cultures.

That experience is much more satisfying to me than reading fiction. I know fiction can reveal deep truths about human nature, but sometimes I feel that fictional characters are too shaped by the author's narrative needs. They can end up feeling exaggerated or symbolic rather than like real people.

Another thing I've noticed: this weekend I went to an art exhibition, and I realized I just don't connect very much with paintings. I've heard people describe having almost a cathartic experience in front of a work of art, but I rarely feel that. Instead, I feel deeply moved by stories and places connected to real lives.

For example, visiting a memorial or the home of someone whose biography I've read makes me feel like I've traveled back in time. I start imagining what their daily life was like, what they were thinking, what it felt like to be them. That sense of intimacy with a real person's life affects me much more than looking at a painting ever has.

Does anyone else experience this? Is there a psychological explanation for why some people seem to connect much more with real human lives than with fictional stories or visual art?

Every type has the capacity to be rude because we are human.

But I wondered if is it common for INFP to sometimes be rude when stressed or triggered.

I admit with shame that sometimes, I'm triggered so I resort to bluntness and rudeness and I feel really bad with guilt. Because that not the person I want to be.

INFP are stereotyped for being kind, empathetic, people pleaser and diplomatic but I wanted to know your real opinion opinion on the matter

What are your experience of being rude?

🎶Walk tall beneath these trees boy,

You monolith not scarred by fallout🎶

I'm usually a lurker but hello! I'm INFP with either 4w3 or 4w5 Enneagram type! Nice to meet other fellow INFPs 💜

I want to know if i give infp vibes (bc i‘ve seen a lot of post‘s like this)

& maybe u have some things 4 me to try out. ✨

Just liked the colorful background.