Here’s a method that’s helped me fall asleep faster lately. I call it the “Fractal House.” I like this method because it’s more interesting to me than methods like breathing, drumming with my fingers, or other methods I’ve tried.

Here are the steps:

1. Get comfortable in your preferred falling-asleep position.
2. Imagine a calming, comfortable, and interesting location. I like to imagine a house, but it could be anywhere / anything. A camping site, a cruise ship, your favorite library after closing time, or another place.
   1. If you can’t conceptualize a new place, look to your past and think about a favorite, comfortable, calming place from your past.
3. Begin the fractal loop: Find a favorite place or thing within that place.
4. Explore your favorite parts about that place or thing, engaging your senses: Touch things, taste, hear, or smell them if you can (sleep-ready mode).
5. With a favorite part identified, either keep going deeper in exploring the details of that item, or move on.
6. Once you’re ready to move on (prospective mode), find a different item inside the Fractal house on which to use the fractal loop.
7. At this point I’m usually asleep within seconds.

For Example

Example 1: I imagine myself in a small house by the seashore. I imagine that I’m sitting in a comfortable chair at a desk with some interesting items. One of those items is an old computer, like the one I had when I was a teenager. I visualize the screen as I navigate the user interface. I see myself opening a journaling file. I start to type. I can see each letter and word as I type. I can see the pixels that form the letters of each word. (Zzzzz)

Example 2: I imagine myself vacationing in a large yacht. I take a swim in the pool inside the yacht. I visualize the details of the interior of the pool. Its geometry, and the way I swim inside of it. I feel the rough sides of the pool with my fingers. Emerging from the pool, I dry off and grab a slice of pizza from a nearby table. I can smell it, taste it. I then find that there’s a door in the wall which opens into a small, comfortable guest bedroom. Inside the room there’s a counter top with a mirror and sink, next to a bed. On the bed there is a very inviting soft duvet. I climb into the bed and pull up the duvet. Everything is just right and the lighting is warm and dim, just how I like it. (Zzzzz)

Example 3: I see myself using an old minidisc player from the early 2000s. I open the case and visualize myself inside, a miniature person wondering this techno-scape. It turns into a cyberpunk world in which I find a favorite diner. I eat something warm at the diner and the owner invites me to have a nap in one of the rental cubicles. In the cubicle I log into the 5-credit time travel interface. Suddenly I’m laying on a couch in a banker’s office in 1890s London. There’s a roaring fire in the fireplace and I hear the sounds of a holiday party down the hall. I rest my head on the comfortable pillow, pull up the wool blanket, and Zzzzz.

In that last example, you can see how the fractal aspect really transcends any concept of “reality” to engage the imagination. This is done in order to gradually explore more and more comfortable locations or details.

Other Objects and Scenarios

I’ve also done this with:

• Fractal model-building: Constructing a scale model in my mind’s eye, until I fall asleep. Focusing on the interesting parts of the model first.
• Fractal scheduling: Designing a fictional schedule as if I’m someone else entirely, using a computing device with scheduling software. Each item on the schedule is planned out in detail.
• Fractal tourism: Building and then exploring a city in detail. Usually these are pretty idealistic locations, perhaps better fit for Playmobil people in the sense that they’re fun and interesting first, but the idealism factor is very comforting.

As always, the details of the concept are important here: Develop the fractal details. Go deeper, slower, to see if sleep comes (sleep-ready mode). And keep the loop going (prospective mode) if you aren’t asleep yet.

Filed in: Rest /22/ | Therapeutic Practice /146/ | Control /112/ | Publications /44/ | Intuition /63/

(How we doing, pandemic INTJs?) Some updates on stuff!

First, damn that’s a cool image. Wow. Space is neat.

Speaking of which…

Space Roleplaying

I’ve been reading HardNova 2 and Shatterzone recently. Both fun and unique in different ways.

Space roleplaying has been a lot of fun. As I piece together various approaches toward campaigns, narratives, characters, and world-building, I think some of the personal reasons include:

Building from Scratch: I’m at a very unknown / open-ended stage of my life & career right now. And space is just like that. Some things in my life are more-known, like “what I need to do today,” for example. But in the big picture I think my subconscious is going, “HOLY GEEZ, you can do ANYTHING out here in space!” It’s kind of a creativity cue. So a lot of my hobby work takes inspiration from this idea that it’s a big universe out there…kid. It’s fun, too.

Epic Sense of Scale: There’s this idea that I’m building at a scale suited for the second half of my life. Or last two-thirds, to be generous. New frameworks have to have a big-picture aspect. They involve technology that is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of little changes that can quickly impact the big picture.

Anyway, it’s kinda fun to think about.

In case you’ve never heard of HardNova or Shatterzone, I just want to mention that I’m playing the underdog-interest card here. The introverted-values-oriented (Fi) idea that one can sometimes derive an extra bit of creative energy by going with the approach that’s less-appreciated. I can also understand that people might just go with the Star Trek Adventures or the Aliens RPG or another popular & well-known system, and I think that’s cool too. But this time I’m going with the underdogs because I can feel that weirdly irrational pull toward the “option nobody’s heard of” and my guess is that it’ll pay off at a subjective / personal level.

Other Roleplaying

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have my own G.I. Joe / Action Force -style fictional group. It has a really cartoony feel and has been funny to work on. You can come up with all kinds of cool characters and weapons and villains and none of it has to make any kind of logical sense unless you decide it’s time to think about that.

The private-public interface for this kind of work is really a neat puzzle to think about, as well. How do I show this to the world? What benefit does that bring me? How would it help others to experience it? I don’t know all the answers, but there are so many possibilities that are downright fascinating.

Every day my journaling template randomly rolls up and inserts a new role-playing scenario, and I have enjoyed ad-libbing based on those as well.

Music

I picked up a few vintage keyboards to play with. Man, making music is fun, even if I’m not terribly good at it.

Recently I have either a Yamaha PSS-480 or a Yamaha PSS-170 on my desk at work. What a fun new development this has been. Activities:

• Sound-doodling in general. Picking a random sound on the keyboard and developing its mood.
• I’ll listen to random Youtube songs and try to figure out the chord progression.
• A couple days ago I found a nice bell sound and recorded it as a ringtone for my phone.
• Playing with synthesis: Creating new sounds, either randomly or based on a spec.

(BTW. A Yamaha PSS-480 makes a great little electronica-landscape for roleplaying with cyberpunk paper miniatures.)

INTJs

People I’ve been watching while thinking, “hmmm…yes…you light my INTJ buttons”:

• Jon Cryer, actor
• Shailene Woodley, actress (yes! Always looking for new-to-me INTJs of varied genders)
• Martin Pistorius (check out this TED talk)
• Mark ‘I disagree with the premise of that question’ Zuckerberg
• Charles Cornell, Youtube’s own jazz pianist

Summary

I wish I had time to write more, but for now that’ll have to be enough. Hope you’re all well & healthy! —Marc

Filed in: People /74/ | Interests /112/

I just published the latest journaling template update.

This update includes:

• A more concrete “Stats” section near the top, giving additional examples of health & productivity statistics tracking in plain text
• Optional Activities like art and collage journaling, to help get those feelings out
• A simple, plain-text scheduling template
• Minor wording changes here and there

The template does pull in my personal calendar and some other outside sources automatically, so there are references to that in the file.

Using this template lately has also helped me design a couple new keyboard shortcuts:

• Typing “wk (Tab)” will insert my weekly goals, stances, etc. This has been really, really helpful for tracking and staying on top of big-picture items.
• Typing “ak (Tab)” will insert my current work projects.
• Typing “intt (Tab)” will insert a short list my interests, randomly selected from a larger list. This shortcut gets a lot of credit for keeping my days fun and interesting lately, as opposed to dull and wearying. The full list of interests is up over 600 now, so there’s always something in there that calls to me. In other words, it’s like a catalog of my own life-giving archetypes. Chances are, some of them are ready to give more life, if that makes sense. (Yes please, more life please.)

I also have some other changes planned:

• I want to spend more time drawing out a variety of inner voices, the aspects of the inner world that can help bring more variety, flavor, and creativity to the outer life. So I have started to outline new keyboard shortcuts / scripts that will force some of that flavor into the journaling template (probably more on this later). A lot of this work focuses on narrative-generation.
• I would like to integrate even more sensory freshness and feeling. I’m thinking about things like doodling cues and music-creation cues.

As always:

I continue to use this template myself, and find that it has become one of my most useful tools for near-instant stress relief. Over time, this habit also tends to build a pool of documentation which can be used for knowledge capture.

Filed in: Productivity /120/ | Therapeutic Practice /146/ | Technology /41/ | Interests /112/

The founder of Boom Supersonic is lighting my INTJ buttons:

He starts his presentation at just under a minute in.

Important aspects:

• The business was designed to fit the founder’s values as closely as possible via a ranking exercise, after he sold a smartphone apps business. It’s the “but what do I feel” behind the entrepreneurial engineering venture. The Fi-Te approach of the INTJ in midlife.
• There’s tons of introversion here. Personal history, personal values, even the bit about learning how to sell…
• Airplanes

OK, that last one is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, lots of us INTJs love our airplanes.

Or flight sims.

Or books about airplanes.

(You ever think that the interest itself might point at something …?)

Filed in: Feeling /64/ | People /74/ | Interests /112/ | Technology /41/ | Fi /35/ | Careers /40/

Lately I’ve been looking into more of the stories I’ve been told. Have you ever done this? It’s kinda hard, starting from the standpoint of “let’s question a thing I currently believe,” but it’s important.

I’m doing this more often these days, because years ago I started to realize that “looking into things” is one of those things that our introversion tries to prevent us from doing, even though it’s a pretty healthy activity and beneficial in a lot of ways.

And by “our introversion tries to prevent us,” I mean everyone’s introversion—extroverts included.

We’ve all got these deep and comfortable introverted personality aspects. We really like to think we know our past well.

From there we tend to automatically interlace two powerful meta-constructs: “Things I was Taught in My Past” and “My Identity”. When that happens without a healthy amount of looking into things, or exploring things, or testing things, then some really, really troubling problems can develop.

I remember when I first faced some of these problems in my own past. I had decided to look into the things I believed. Take health and wellness, for example. I challenged my mental models, learned some new perspectives, and tested some others’ models, and in doing so I lost a huge amount of weight and overcame challenging health conditions. That was a huge lesson. Afterward I felt really confused, and almost speechless. How could I have not known that things could be this good? How could I have just “decided” that my life was fine, or great, or not in need of examination of the status quo? In fact, my favored connection to my past, this introverted aspect, had blinded me to the possibility.

Then I watched some troubling problems develop in some people close to me, when they didn’t look into things. I also learned that you could see this happen in a whole organization—this one pattern alone is really incredible! People don’t look into stuff, and they try to convince their peers not to look into stuff. A conspiracy of introversion, conscious or not. The group might even push back with all their energy to protect their past, forming their identity as it does, but without ever really knowing why, or what the alternative might be.

Some Problems With Looking Into Things

The hard thing about this kind of activity is that it constantly threatens to upset the status quo. It’s like a natural enemy to stability. A group may in fact be wise to react against it in the short term, until the investigative effort proves that it has a good foundation and some momentum. After all, if the qualitative aspects of the new discoveries are really not so great, maybe you just destroyed an organization, or disrupted it, for no good reason.

It’s also troubling in the sense that it may cause you or your group to take steps that needlessly break down or hobble ongoing relationships of support and mutual appreciation. If you get upset and start lobbing truth-bombs at people, the emotional impact alone—long before the information is processed—will likely cause them to reevaluate your relationship. That’s a big deal. It may also cause neutral third parties to wonder if really you have a handle on your own emotion. This can call the new information itself into question.

Plus, we can’t look into everything. Sometimes we have to set a boundary. I think it’s wise to do this consciously, if possible. Like, “OK, I did a full day’s research and I’m pretty sure my aunt isn’t a serial killer. But I’m not 100% sure. Still, for now I’m OK hosting her here at my house with the following contingencies in place…” (Sorry—took some creative liberties with the example)

Finally, the Star Trek factor: You are charting a course into the unknown. If you don’t have much experience in working with the unknown, it can be really troubling. Some INTJs are good at this—they have developed frameworks for evaluating brand new, world- or life-changing information, for example.

Other INTJs are not good at this at all—in their rush to “never be caught not knowing something,” they have unwittingly left open a huge blind spot where new information is concerned, a blind spot which they papered over with improvised “pretendings-to-know” or “vaguely-knowing”. When a new and uncomfortable question arises, they are left to improvise, and sometimes it’s embarrassing to watch. Usually they talk faster, and even more informationally than usual, and trying to talk to someone like this can feel like you’re witnessing a computer that is overheating or something.

Why it’s Still a Good Idea

Even though there are risks, there are some really great rewards available when we look into things.

First, a lot of past beliefs are really low-hanging fruit. They’re easy to look into, very easy to research, and the conclusions are probably helpful, but probably also not destructively, explosively helpful.

For example, let’s say you keep regretting a career move you made in the past. You defend it when talking to others, but in truth you still have doubts.

It causes you to wince a bit, but you go back to your memory, write out the story as you remember it, and then you talk to some other people, or do some research about the alternatives. You realize that your intuition about the move was right, but maybe your decision-making process was hampered by a mind that was more closed off than it could have been. There were alternatives that you didn’t consider, that you should have. This is a lesson that’s probably not going to destroy your life, and you can apply it forward the next time you face a big decision.

Second, it helps to know that you made a decision grounded not only in your past, but also by your exploration of a broader set of current and future contexts. For example, maybe you made a spreadsheet of financial projections and realized that within a few months you’ll be able to afford a vacation you previously thought sounded really extravagant. Or maybe you were hesitant about adopting a pet and decided to talk to some friends about it. You shared your concerns and they came back to you with some really great feedback.

Third, people around you probably need this talent. And you’re good at it. INTJs tend to be good researchers, good investigators. We may be able to help people who are suffering with severe doubts and a lack of emotional energy, by showing them new informational aspects or facts they hadn’t considered.

As long as we can keep an open mind and communicate gently, we may even be in a fantastic position to help other people uncover life-changing information and make positive decisions about it. (Gentle communications are hard sometimes—especially, I find, if the new information is exciting or world-changing. Or if you think of yourself as a “straight dope” person, like a hard-boiled detective. Just keep in mind these types aren’t known for being deft relationship navigators.)

…I should also mention that you may need to be gentle with yourself! Your old self is likely very forgivable…

Fourth, the world needs this talent. And you’re good at it. We are, all of us, simultaneously hoping for, and fearing, the future. We INTJs can develop a sort of hidden superpower, in laying out an optimistic case and planning for a way to achieve it, plus maybe a couple of contingency plans. You know what I mean? It feels good to be idealistic, so let’s do that. But let’s also have the backup plans ready. We’re covering our bases, but we’re not giving up on a positive, responsive, and flexible approach to new problems and outcomes. In my experience, this balanced approach will usually bring good results, faster.

Conclusion

Personally, I will happily admit that I don’t know where this is taking me, and I’ve learned to be OK with that. In my experience, the activity is more helpful, the more I give it attention.

Does this make you more of an extroverted person? If so—fine. The idea here is transcendence of opposites, rather than swinging between two poles of introversion and extroversion. The new person you become over time will simply be better prepared after learning to fluently navigate a variety of different perspectives, stories, hopes, and fears.

Filed in: Thinking /70/ | Productivity /120/ | Therapeutic Practice /146/ | Relationships /78/ | Feeling /64/ | Openness /49/ | Control /112/ | Essays /53/

One of the cool things about science is that it can help us understand why primitive mental models were so great, or addictive, or apparently true, or whatever. It’s the “hey, you thought the sun was the center of the universe because of the way your perceptions work…” and on top of that, the scientific method also brings us these cool new models from which to work.

So part of the deal is, those old models still have some OK or even good leverage points. They can still be useful! Even in simple ways—and that’s really nice. It does unfortunately allow people to cling to those models and insist that they still work, which they do. But in many cases they also don’t work more and more, on a wider set of problems, with every passing day.

Some of those models use really comically archaic terms. Jung brought a lot of those to the surface, connecting current experiences with ancient archetypes.

(He also liked ancient archetypes…this was his language, insofar as it was the earth from which he emerged into adulthood…)

But also, science is doing this work by giving us new mental models. We humans are developing new model-types and model-archetypes.

So if you’re practicing a sort of personal science, you should find that new pattern-symbol-model overlays and possibilities emerge. New stuff should be available to you, and the combinations should be fascinating, addictive, large.

Sometimes as an INTJ or an introvert it’s all too easy to point at history and say, “history has all the answers about this.”

However that’s the big-picture view, the pattern view. Just make a broad pattern ever more broad, and the solutions of history will eventually fit the current problem set.

So it’s important to get into details—the historian who is projecting things forward can make big mistakes if they hold too closely to the past. Sometimes the future’s just different.

And if our brand-new models don’t conform to ancient archetype very well, or history, I think that’s 100% OK. Could be wrong, but in the case of archetype, the memetic nature of human society kind of gets at the way humans process and mold archetype in order to build new mental model reservoirs.

Drawing from the traditional reservoirs, we may emerge thinking, “OK today I’m going to be like Batman,” but we may also think, “nah, more like Gotham Girl or Batwing…” or something similar, but different.

This has been really enlightening to me. Some of this is also a benefit of paying attention to current societal trends and messaging. Especially insofar as they’re just the group—our group—talking to itself about things.

(Do Black Lives Matter, to you? I wonder. They matter to me. I would guess that there are a lot of INTJs to whom this question is absolutely qwetu2385u9zbpoiyuqpoiuy?.1!!! I mean, are there enough words in the universe for the Fi-driven take on this issue? So you have to be careful with that. Could cause massive problems, or could help you figure out a way through the problems. Hopefully the latter. But if you use Fi like a conspiracy theorist uses Ti, you can lock yourself out of the discussion entirely, with only yourself to blame.)

What it looks like to not do this

Without practice at this phase or frame of reference for mental-modeling, I would expect a person confronted with problems to either remain at their current level of grump, or get more grumpy over time.

Grump really plays into this, because a river of grump tends to run right up to the very threshold of the amazing world of new and unique and interesting stuff. It’s weird like that.

Which, grump is “OK” as a state of being in that Fi-sense of “do your thing and let me do mine, see, we’re all OK (not really)” but kind of much less OK insofar as a grumpy person never really comes off as a helper, in times of crisis…there are a lot of issues that require us to open up our perceptive arms and welcome any and all brand new solutions that never existed before.

This is much different from, and often much more powerful than, the grumpy take. Or the historic take. Or the my-models-are-grounded-in-my-own-past take.

It also draws heavily on the intuition, and I think highlights a unique leverage point for a lot of INTJs out there.

(Not only am I the president of New Outlooks on Grumpy Lifestyles, I’m also a client…)

Filed in: Fe /20/ | Energy /121/ | Intuition /63/ | Essays /53/ | Relationships /78/ | Fi /35/ | Openness /49/

Interesting paper: Mental Work Requires Physical Energy: Self-Control is Neither Exception nor Exceptional

The brain’s reliance on glucose as a primary fuel source is well established, but psychological models of cognitive processing that take energy supply into account remain uncommon. One exception is research on self-control depletion, where debate continues over a limited-resource model. This model argues that a transient reduction in self-control after the exertion of prior self-control is caused by the depletion of brain glucose, and that self-control processes are special, perhaps unique, in this regard. [Emphasis mine —Marc]

So, if you lost self-control lately, after you had it for a while, and then you found yourself stress-eating glucose-heavy foods…maybe this paper offers some thoughts to consider.

A bit more:

Ongoing research has been focused on understanding the nature of this depletion process. Most notably, researchers have been trying to determine what the limited resource is. Some have suggested that much of the depletion process is driven by expectations – that is, people believe that self-control is bounded by a limited resource and thus act accordingly (Martijn et al., 2002; Job et al., 2010). On the other hand, other researchers have suggested a physiological basis for this resource. The most prominent of these resource models is the glucose model of self-control depletion (Gailliot and Baumeister, 2007), referred to here as ‘the glucose model.’

I would love to read more of this paper. For now I love how it lines up with a lot of my own experiences, blogged about here before. ;-)

The Moderated Dirty Cut, for example, is pretty heavy in glucose-laden foods. And the reason they’re emphasized in this diet is simple: My body seems to request those foods as a result of my normal day’s work.

(I don’t expect papers to signal miracle correlations, but I like that people are looking into it…)

Filed in:

Interesting paper: Mental Work Requires Physical Energy: Self-Control is Neither Exception nor Exceptional

The brain’s reliance on glucose as a primary fuel source is well established, but psychological models of cognitive processing that take energy supply into account remain uncommon. One exception is research on self-control depletion, where debate continues over a limited-resource model. This model argues that a transient reduction in self-control after the exertion of prior self-control is caused by the depletion of brain glucose, and that self-control processes are special, perhaps unique, in this regard. [Emphasis mine —Marc]

So, if you lost self-control lately, after you had it for a while, and then you found yourself stress-eating glucose-heavy foods…maybe this paper has some thoughts to consider.

A bit more:

Ongoing research has been focused on understanding the nature of this depletion process. Most notably, researchers have been trying to determine what the limited resource is. Some have suggested that much of the depletion process is driven by expectations – that is, people believe that self-control is bounded by a limited resource and thus act accordingly (Martijn et al., 2002; Job et al., 2010). On the other hand, other researchers have suggested a physiological basis for this resource. The most prominent of these resource models is the glucose model of self-control depletion (Gailliot and Baumeister, 2007), referred to here as ‘the glucose model.’

I would love to read more of this paper. For now I love how it lines up with a lot of my own experiences, blogged about here before. ;-)

The Moderated Dirty Cut, for example, is pretty heavy in glucose-laden foods. And the reason they’re emphasized in this diet is simple: My body seems to request those foods as a result of my normal day’s work.

(I don’t expect papers to signal miracle correlations, but I like that people are looking into it…)

Filed in: Si /19/ | Energy /121/ | Dieting /18/ | Sensation /40/

While thinking about gentle communications, I found this interesting little nugget via Kottke.org

From @ProfSunnySingh, a tweet about debate

I would be delighted to accept an invitation in the future should there be an opportunity for a reparative and contemplative – rather than adversarial – exchange of ideas.

There’s something that really resonates here. I’ve personally been wondering lately: Why isn’t the classical debate really done so much anymore? And when it is done, why is it so niche?

TBH after watching some old debates and thinking about this, they were kind of cringe in that adversarial or exclusive sense. I had to think it wasn’t super necessary, and it may have even been harmful, to arrange a clash of ideas like that. And the idea of “winning” a debate…hmmm…that’s kind of a one-dimensional way to look at human creativity.

As much as this may pain some of us INTJs, we who prize the act of winning others’ deference with just the right knowledge-nugget or a statistic example shared at the right moment, it really could be that debate needs a replacement-activity.

It seems clear to me that really nailing the positioning of a knowledge-nugget or a stat or an example on a linear timeline, as part of a competition is quite different from the broader patterns around engaging in productive discourse, and probably pretty unnecessary—or maybe unnecessary depending on the context.

(I also believe we’re creative enough to come up with vastly superior replacements for things we don’t want to do anymore, in general. Kind of an underrated human trick. We INTJs can totally nail this with our intuition sometimes—take a new spec for a thing that doesn’t exist yet, and conceptualize the exact form of that new thing. And maybe we can do that with things like debate, when pained voices tell us that debate is hurting them. A “better debate” without those downsides is likely doable with some thought.)

In the past I have enjoyed some of the Intelligence Squared debates and they do seem a bit more like conversations than other debates I’ve watched or heard. But I also haven’t heard what the experience is like for the debaters.

There’s also the model wherein “NT” types are the “debaters,” in which for all we know, the other personality types find debate ridiculous, stuffy, annoying, embarrassing, tacky, insulting, or stressful. While this model is limited, it does surface the question of how suitable debate really is, for a society at large, as a cultural co-development tool.

Filed in: Interests /112/ | People /74/

A good question:

I am an INTJ female and I have a question about INTJ men. Do INTJ men ever wonder if they “feel” better or more effectively than the feeling personality types in their life? For example, sometimes I can easily feel the unspoken truth that someone likes or dislikes me. I usually have to do something about it because it can cause a very distracting effect. It almost feels like I’m the one soaking up the emotional impact for both of us. In most cases these are feeler-types, like ENFP, INFP, INFJ…

And you often end up acting on this before they do, right? This is a pretty wild topic…I find it really deep and interesting to think about, myself.

Maybe because I don’t think of myself as 100% Thinker…

And to answer your question, yes, I’ve met more than a few INTJs who are really impressively attuned to the Feeler-side of life. Here are some aspects I’ve noticed:

• They may have learned to speak and write in a gentle, sensitive way
• They may have already processed the need for a values-oriented life, so they’re quick to talk in values-oriented terms and set healthy boundaries, for example if they’re pressured to make a decision that goes against their values
• They may display outward emotion in ways you’d never expect
• They may have a good hold on charisma and are able to use it in a flexible manner
• They may generally like this feelings-oriented part of themselves and enjoy interacting with it in a positive way, expecting and reaching positive outcomes
• They may have a surprising capacity for actively taking on, and working through “relationship logic” when troubles arise

In a lot of cases, these individuals were raised by, or in part by, feelers. Maybe mom was an ESFJ and dad was an INFJ, for example. In some other cases, maybe both parents were Thinker types, and the INTJ ended up magnifying their Feeler-side in order to differentiate in some ways.

Some INTJs have told me it’s a bit “hard to watch” their Feeler friends who seem to deprive their feelings a voice. For example, an INFJ friend who constantly projects a thirst for the logical-analytical side of life during an ongoing relationship crisis, or an ENFP friend who is obsessed with information processing in the face of a mounting personal values crisis.

This is not to say those situations or approaches are “wrong” for those other people, but rather I think it’s fair to say that it can be frustrating to watch others ignore those aspects of life, when you yourself have found tremendous value in giving more direct attention to those aspects of life.

And if you’re relatively new to this kind of thing as an INTJ, maybe watch out for projection, the “I felt it first, and you’re not even able to get at your feelings, how sad is that” take.

You may also find that this additional capacity can indeed bring you to clarity faster, in some ways, than the others with whom you are working or relating. For example, you may find it necessary to communicate the fact that you’re just done with a process or context, because you already know everyone else is, too, through empathic intuition or communications.

At these junctures I do find it helpful to be forthright yet gentle in communications, but I also think it’s wise to ask for feedback during the process of disengagement or other decision-making. One of the worst things you can do is to act condescending or make assumptions. Being conflicted about one’s own feelings, and possibly feeling mostly one way or another is different from being completely decided about how one feels, and it can hurt others to treat them as if their minds are definitely made up, when in fact they are simply not sure how to express the depth and complexity of what they’re feeling.

As a final point to consider, I’ll just add that sometimes you simply can’t engage with Feelers or Thinkers in a Feeler way, at all. Maybe they’ve gone stubbornly silent, even though you both know that it’s time for them to express themselves.

I find that’s a good juncture at which to bring in a gentle sense of humor, or bring up a random thought, and see if it can help to lighten the mood a little bit. Sometimes the best thing you can do is allow people to move on to a different line of thinking, and often they’ll later demonstrate in other ways that they really got the message that you hoped they would get.

Anyway, it’s always good to talk about this, a worthy topic. Especially given a mental model with such a dichotomous look at personality aspects: Thinking vs. Feeling. But life is really much more complex than that.

Filed in: People /74/ | Intuition /63/ | Relationships /78/ | Feeling /64/ | Fe /20/ | Fi /35/