10 Stories You’ll Relate To If You’re An INFJ

15 October, 201813 November, 2019Marissa

What stories do you relate to as an INFJ? Not just a character in the story that you identify with, but also themes and plot points that speak to something inside you.

That’s what this blog post is about. It’s not necessarily a list of INFJs’ favorite books and movies (though there is some overlap). It’s not even about INFJ fictional characters, though they do appear in several of these stories. This list is about stories that INFJs can read or watch and see something of their dreams, desires, worldview, and personality. We love to find ourselves inside stories, and the 10 on this list are among the stories that INFJs find most relatable.

“We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?”

― The Doctor (Matt Smith)

1. Amélie

Even though it’s always at the top of INFJ movie lists, I’d never seen Amélie (2001) until I watched it to write this post. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I can’t think of any film character who’s more relatable for me as an INFJ than Amélie is in this film.

What INFJ hasn’t experienced random strangers pouring out their life’s stories? And how many of us have got so caught-up in our imaginations that we sit crying over our future on the couch? Or imagine that the person running late was kidnapped by bank robbers and through a weird series of events ended up living as a hermit in Afghanistan? Read more →

Why Is It So Hard For Certain Personality Types To “Just Get Over It”?

8 October, 20187 October, 2018Marissa

You know when you’re struggling with something bad that happened to you and someone says, “Just get over it,” but you know it’s not that simple? For some reason, this particular hurt lodged deep inside and letting go seems well-nigh impossible.

For this post, I’m not talking about a hurt like grief over losing someone you love. We know why things like that are hard to “get over,” and in many cases it wouldn’t be appropriate to move on quickly. Most people recognize that hurts of that sort require time to heal and grieve. I’m talking about interpersonal hurts that might seem “little,” but have a big impact anyway. For example…

You express an authentic part of yourself (like your happy, fun-loving side), then people assume that’s all there is to your personality.
You receive 99% positive feedback about a project, but that 1% haunts you anyway.
You help someone out of the goodness of your heart, but others misinterpret your motives.
You decide to open up to someone, then lie awake at night worrying about their reaction.

Hurts like this touch on the core of who we are and/or our relationships with other people. These hurts are often deeply individual, and others might not understand them. If you don’t care what other people think of you, then you’re not going to understand why someone else is so upset about the one person in their life who’s a critic. If you find it easy to adapt to different social situations, you might not understand why someone’s so upset about not being able to express their true self all the time.

The reason why things like this can hurt us so deeply is often nuanced and complicated, but it has a lot to do with how we use the Feeling sides of our personalities. Everyone has a Feeling side (whether or not there’s an F in your four-letter Myers-Briggs® type), and we each use this part of our personality a little differently. Read more →

Here’s What Happens When Church Hurts An INFJ

25 September, 201813 November, 2019Marissa

INFJs can get hurt pretty easily. Usually, these hurts come from other people, but in some cases they come from institutions like a church. Of course groups like this are made up of people, but in many cases the hurts that happen within a group aren’t blamed on individuals. They’re blamed on the organization or sometimes, for churches and religious groups, on God.

So what happens when church hurts an INFJ? One thing I found most interesting about my article “Religion and the INFJ” is how many people I’ve heard from who relate to what I mentioned in that post about INFJs being turned-off from church/religion/God. This phenomena isn’t limited to Christian INFJs, but that is who I’ll be focusing on today.

Door Slamming God

You’ve probably heard of the INFJ door slam, right? That’s what happens when someone hurts an INFJ so much that they “slam the door” and stop investing energy in the relationship. In certain situations, INFJs can also door slam whole groups of people, or even concepts like “romance.” Some INFJs who’ve had particularly terrible experiences with religions even slam the door on God. Read more →

10 Things INTJs Need In A Friendship

17 September, 201819 August, 2019Marissa

Ever wonder how to be friends with an INTJ? People with this personality type have a reputation for being intelligent and aloof loners, but like many stereotypes this isn’t really all that accurate. INTJs put a high value on friendships and they can make wonderful friends.

As someone with an INTJ best friend who also happens to be my sister, I find it puzzling when I hear people talk about INTJs as unfeeling or robotic. I’ve laughed out-loud a few times (thankfully not during an in-person conversion) to see people say INTJs don’t care about their friends or have no emotions. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. If an INTJ comes across as uncaring it was most likely by accident (and if not they’ll probably be honest enough to let you know).

If you’re not yet sure why you’d want an INTJ friend, check out this article: “7 Reasons Why You Need an INTJ Friend in Your Life.” Since you’re reading today’s article, though, I’m going to assume you either want to make friends with an INTJ or you want to be a better friend to the INTJs in your life. And so, without further ado, here are 10 things INTJs need in a friendship.

Looking for a test that can help you discover your personality type? I recommend the free test from Personality Hacker (click here to take it). Please note that this is an affiliate link, which means if you make a purchase after taking the test I’ll receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

1) Loyalty

INTJs are fiercely loyal once they care about you. After you earn their trust and they consider you a friend, you can bet they’ll expect the same kind of loyalty from you that you’re getting from them. Betraying an INTJ is the fastest way to end the friendship. You’ve heard of INFJ doorslams, right? INTJs can be just as bad, or even worse. If you get doorslamed by an INTJ you might as well not exist anymore. Read more →

How To Communicate More Comfortably As An Introvert

11 September, 201810 September, 2018Marissa

Talking can be hard for introverts. Get us in just the right setting and you might have trouble making us shut up, but in most everyday conversations we struggle to come up with anything to talk about. As I wrote about last week, many introverts struggle to talk about personal things. Beyond that, we struggle with knowing what to talk about at all.

We often assume most people don’t want to hear about the things we care about. We think it sounds boring to answer, “What did you do last weekend?” by saying “Stayed home with my cat and watched Netflix.” Or we worry that we sound uninteresting if we answer, “What do you like to do?” with “Read, contemplate life, hide in a blanket fort … you know, exciting stuff like that.”

The Kind Of Talking We Don’t Like

About 50% of the population is introverted so there’s actually a good chance of you finding other people who think what you enjoy is perfectly normal because they also enjoy similar things. But for those of us in the United States, and other cultures that tend to have more “extroverted” values, we might still feel pressure to not be “weird” and stick with “normal” topics of conversation. Read more →