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In this episode, Joel and Antonia go on a journey of discovery where they showcase the need for positively expressed Introverted Feeling in today’s world.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- The Wire (HBO)
- Introverted Intuition (Ni) “Perspectives”
- Ni is a perceiving process
- Dominant function for INTJs & INFJs
- Copilot function for ENTJs & ENFJs
- Real understanding without the depth of intimacy that Fi feels.
- Ni feels objective. Understanding for understanding sake without empathy.
- Being able to understand someone is different from validating their feelings.
- Compassion can be the result, but it’s not the mechanism Ni uses when understanding another person’s perspective.
- Ni gives us the ability to study things dispassionately
- NTJs are more likely to look at everything in concepts of systems.
- NFJs are more likely to look at people as systems.
- But both can play both sides.
- It’s about removing the individual’s personal feelings, so those feelings don’t create bias.
- To get underneath what is happening
- Fully clocked Ni is a simulation of Se which observes reality as it comes.
- Instead of outside world sensory info (Se), Ni simulates that process internally.
- Entire realities created within itself.
- If some of our language around Ni sounds like Ti and Fi, remember that T/F are judging functions. N/S are learning functions.
- Ti is looking for truth
- Fi is looking for intent/desire
- Ni doesn’t want anything. It follows its internal bliss and allows things to surface as it will.
- It has the intent of insight, but it doesn’t want anything. It’s just observing.
- Ni is captured by simulated reality.
- Si has a past orientation. Impressions built over time. Experiential.
- Ni doesn’t have to experience something. It takes what it understands about sensory stimuli and creates simulations of reality.
- Why does the world need Ni?
- Black Mirror (Netflix) looks at how technology advances to dystopian futures.
- Ni developed to assist survival situations.
- What does it look like if this happens?
- Ni gives us the importance of consequences.
- Ni can run the simulation and share it in a way that others can understand.
- What will happen down the line if I knock this domino over here?
- Ni taps into the depth of imagination.
- Ni looks at the fundamental principles of the human mind.
- How do minds operate? What are the patterns that the human mind tends to attach?
- Fi: “Whatever is most personal is most universal.”
- Ni: “The macro reflects the micro, and the micro reflects the macro.”
- We have a lot of disagreements right now; Ni can help bridge the gap to create a simulated shared reality.
- For Fi, it understands the power of narrative, and if it doesn’t dive deep into its intent and motivation, it can start to manipulate the power of narrative to get what it wants.
- Getting to that dispassionate place is hard for NJs (especially NFJs).
- NJs mind has given them a place to go to create psychological distance from people.
- Ni can keep shifting perspectives until it finds one it likes.
- “I’ll just find a perspective where I’m happy.”
- What crosses supports you.
- All of our strengths can be turned against ourselves.
- Ni can get so lost in its simulations that it doesn’t bring its gifts to the world. It just stays in a place that isn’t good because it can make peace with it… for a time.
- The world needs sophisticated Ni to keep the gift of being able to see multiple perspectives and run simulations of worlds that haven’t been created.
- The world needs Ni.
- We are entering a more complex world. We cannot know what is going to happen.
- We aren’t going to make it as the human race unless we have a future perspective showing us where we are heading.
- Ni in the backseat can still give you a future paced viewpoint.
- ESTP: “Some people don’t know they’re alive unless they’re in pain.”
- They understand that people come with certain mindsets.
- Fi can hold space for the darkness of the heart.
- Ti can hold space for people’s darker thoughts.
- Ni can hold space for people’s mindsets that aren’t serving them.
- Si can hold space for people with dark pasts.
- Ni taps into how we talk to ourselves.
- Ni users love NLP: How our minds construct reality.
- ePrime
- Inner dialogue is not the same as inner narrative.
- Tap into the inner dialogue and the way you use words to describe your reality.
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49 comments
I was excited to read this comment, because it was almost my exact same thought process while listening to the podcast. When I heard that there’s going to be a podcast on all eight functions my mind translated it into ‘Oh great! A podcast on INFJs and their use of introverted intuition.’ Then I started listening to the podcast and got so upset when the topic of empathy came up that I actually stopped to the podcast and curled up next to my husband telling him how upset I was because Antonia and Joel said I’m a cold person that doesn’t use empathy. It took me two days to realise that the podcast wasn’t about INFJs and their empathy, it was on introverted intuition.
It was hard to listen to you talk about how introverted feeling is somehow closer to the heart than introverted intuition, but I think it was harder for INFJs to listen to, not for INTJs (who maybe were happy to hear that they’re connecting to people cognitively and that’s appreciated by people around them). I may be wrong here – but introverted feeling looks much more similar in different types using this function than introverted intuition, which is used by both ‘thinkers’ and ‘feelers’. For very emphatic INFJs it was probably hard to hear that their Driver isn’t an empathy function. That’s true, but for an INFJ constantly mixing introverted intuition with extraverted feeling it never feels like that. We’re deeply affected by everything, and I think it rubs us the wrong way to hear that we have a non-feeling Driver function. That means you’re right in saying introverted intuition is a function trying to understand without emotion involved, but that’s not how INFJS use it, and even after listening to the podcast twice I still can’t summarise why you think introverted intuition as used by an INFJ is appreciated.
Maybe it would have been better to distinguish between Thinkers and Feelers using this function? Introverted Feeling used as a Driver or Co-pilot is always seen in Feelers, so it’s easier to compare the different types here.
Another thing I noticed is that in the last podcast, Introverted Feeling was really appreciated, and in this one there was a lot of (what felt like) criticism. The unhealthy version of Fi wasn’t really mentioned, but it was definitely repeatedly pointed out what unhealthy Ni shows up like and why that’s not cool.
Hi Antonia and Joel, I’m a little confused, not about what you said in either podcast of introverted intuition and introverted feeling, but about which one is more dominant in me! I thought I was an INFP, but your explanation on introverted intuition resonated with me as well. I totally look at new technology that comes out and see the possibilities in terms of misuse. I love dystopian fiction and connecting how actions now could end up with much different outcomes. Are there any particular questions I can ask myself to see better what functions are my more dominant ones? Thanks!
Thank you for the podcast. I loved it. I’m an INTJ. I would agree that Ni is cold and objective. And I love that it is. It comes to the table with no agenda, which I find refreshing.
Since you asked, people tend to comment on my Ni in the form of long-term predictive capabilities. I’ve said many things that people have dismissed only to see them become a reality years down the road. (Of course, it doesn’t stop them from dismissing the next prediction…)
One thing I particularly appreciated was your discussion of understanding or almost sensing reality without having to experience it. I’m a writer and do this ALL THE TIME. I love it. It’s almost better than living out the reality. I can add in nuance, color, action, etc. and experience it fully within my own mind. Years ago I created several hundred Pinterest boards. Someone (an Si dominant) asked me what I planned to do with them. (The majority of them evoke a common sentiment – the same shade of blue in a myriad of settings, the same quality of light throughout the natural environment, etc.) I said that I plan to “walk through them” on a regular basis. They open a specific door in my mind and I can stay there. Sometimes it’s for writing purposes: to take me to the place where I need to be in order to write a specific scene or character. Other times, it’s just for me. She listened and repeated, “but what do you plan to do with them?” She’s nice, but she doesn’t get it. For an Ni, the open door, the imaginative ability to create and to dwell in that mental space is an end in and of itself. I don’t need to do anything with it.
Hi-I just want to make a note here. With respect, you’re objectively not right about the empathy issue. I can tell you that as an INFJ. In fact I do believe you know that INFJs in particular are some of the most empathetic folks, which makes sense because of Fe, of course; you’ve spoken of this many times on your podcasts.
INFPs and ENFPs also do not always come across as empathetic, to note—the less healthy ones can seem quite self-absorbed. As a typologist, many non-Fi types have repeatedly spoken to me about being so confused by how burned they have been by less healthy Fi users precisely because of this. Now, I firmly believe that lack of empathy isn’t what’s actually happening in most of those cases for Fi. What’s happening is the Fi “still waters run deep” phenomenon. The empathy is on the inside and not always spilling over with facial expressions, etc. This is similar with some Ni issues for people who have a strong Ni w/o having integrated their second function—but interestingly, INFJs in particular can actually on the whole much more expressive emotionally than Fi users. Because Fe. Again, you’ve all talked about this re: Fe a lot on your podcast. You helped me learned it.
What’s happening here is a failure to understand the internal experience vs. the external manifestation. Not everyone expresses empathy in the same manner, so I believe your analysis here is a bit of a subjective blindspot in thinking that the way Fi expresses empathy is the CORRECT way. But it’s not—it’s just one way.
I say this with playfulness, but: surely you cannot believe that at least ENFJs do not express empathy really openly. :)
Even with INTJs: I have known many very personally and have probed their internal experiences to try to understand what’s beneath that confusing exterior. What’s going on for many of them is that the feel so strongly that they PRECISELY need to defend against it w/ headiness and intellectualism. Perhaps this is more relevant to the type 5 enneagram structure but it’s a very similar internal experience, according to the INTJs who have confided in me.
At the end of the day, empathy is a human trait and birthright. While some people have more immediate access to it than others, it’s ultimately not related to type, it’s related to level of health. Check out the Buddha: probably a type 5 INTJ whose empathy has been stronger than almost all other humans who have ever existed.
Thanks for listening!
As an INFJ that was in an awful relationship, I did just that. I realised I’d made a mistake, but not seeing a way out I simply shifted my perspective until it matched my reality. It took me a long time to realise that I could also use this process to see a different future play out and then to make that happen.