Do insights come slowly to INFJs?

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Broken705

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I will share my story on insights, and I would like to know if INFJs here relate to it. I'm mostly concerned about how long it takes me to "see things clearly". Has it taken you a while?

I had to see the words "harmony seeking idealist" and then reflect on my life to see how it fit me.

I shamefully admit that in recent times I have told people what I think they are thinking. I never did that before I researched the MBTI and thought that I was an INFJ. In fact, had I not done that, I don't think that I ever would have.

I have been right, but I've also been wrong.

It has taken me a while to fully understand INTJs, for example. They used to come off more aggressive and arrogant than they were. I think I "get" them now. The misunderstanding might have had to do with communication problems between Te/Fi and Fe/Ti.

Then again, I don't have enough evidence to say that INFJ is correct. The MBTI is a theory and not a proven fact.

My mind wanders a lot. I have thought, and wanted to believe, that Ni is the cause of that, and that it is not just having an "undisciplined" thought process and thinking too much.

So, how slow do you go? :twitch:
 
I find that INFJs in general are talented when it comes to understanding people. However, nobody is infallible. Some INFJs are stupid. Some are smart. The more intelligent and brutally realistic the INFJ, the faster they'll get an accurate read off on someone.

I say brutally realistic because sometimes INFJs just don't like something, and they automatically look for reasons to discredit something because of that. For example, if they think that I'm rude, they may not realize that I don't intend to come across that way and that I just have a totally different style of communication, so their read on me will be that I'm a dick. It's not always easy to define exactly what a person's action implies about them, and what it DOESN'T imply. But the more objective a person is, the easier and faster they can figure someone out accurately.
 
I find it very challenging to be around thinkers. .we dont see the world the same at all. I feel the world.. . they see it and analyze it. that puts us at odds so many times. so many decisons get made based on feelings. . how I feel about something, rather then some thought process. . it's also frustrating to be around thinkers and know that they are thinking something through. I will asek "what are yoi thinking?" and usually get "nothing" in return. which is nonsense, I know they are cause I can sense it. . feel it. just different processes.
 
dgraf said:
I find it very challenging to be around thinkers. .we dont see the world the same at all. I feel the world.. . they see it and analyze it. that puts us at odds so many times. so many decisons get made based on feelings. . how I feel about something, rather then some thought process. . it's also frustrating to be around thinkers and know that they are thinking something through. I will asek "what are yoi thinking?" and usually get "nothing" in return. which is nonsense, I know they are cause I can sense it. . feel it. just different processes.
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Well, we can analyze it, I think, or at least, I do.

I try to reason in my head. I normally don't speak it.

Is that too simple of an explanation of Ti? Probably, but don't forget that the top four functions for an INFJ are Ni-Fe-Ti-Se. I think as we grow older some of us can appear "closer to NTs".

Thinkers try to regard their feelings as irrelevant in decision making. I admit that this is hard for me to do a lot of the time.

Thinkers feel and feelers think. Although I wish more people understood that Fe and Fi has to do with values and not feelings.
 
VH said:
It's in direct inverse proportion to how emotionally invested we are in things being a certain way. If we don't care, it's like lightning. If we're convinced otherwise, it takes a long time. Fe is as helpful as it is a hindrance.
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Agreed. That has been a problem for me before.
 
I wouldn't say insight comes slowly to infjs, more like infjs come slowly, in my sight.


if you get what i mean.... :mlight:
 
Yeah. I've heard Ni compared to ocean liner - it moves slowly, but it's so massive that nothing can stop it.

However, once it realises it's off course, it can take aaages for it to turn around and get back on track.
 
Define "insight".

I tend to neutralize a lot of negative emotions. I suppose even if I don't readily understand other types, I tend to neutralize the frustration so it seems like I understand everyone and am accepting of all opinions equally, but this is often not true. I'm merely hiding my inability to understand people very well.
 
The initial ones tend to be fast, but the content, depth, and whether it's true or not is up for grabs (mostly defined by Fe, which is defined by Ti).

After that it tend to be slower, especially if you're trying to see whether if you're wrong.

I guess it depends on 'what' insight are we talking. TRUE, miraculously intuitive, somewhat original and psyche-digging insights? Or more generic than that?
 
Arsal said:
Define "insight".
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I know I'm speaking very broadly. But I guess I'm just thinking about anything that one knows to be true.

For me it's been more about understanding myself and understanding others, which has taken a long time.

It seems like I have the ability, but I have to make what I think of as an "internal effort".
 
Broken705 said:
Agreed. That has been a problem for me before.
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And the same here. Things people mention in passing that I could care less about, I can come up with a theory on, find some examples of and prove or disprove in one way or another relatively quickly. Things I have some sort of emotional investment in, can take me forever to see.
 
Artsu Tharaz said:
Yeah. I've heard Ni compared to ocean liner - it moves slowly, but it's so massive that nothing can stop it.
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I like to think of Ni like those old computers with the big reels of tape that were the size of a warehouse, and took forever to come up with the answer, but once they did, it was dead on perfect.

Artsu Tharaz said:
However, once it realises it's off course, it can take aaages for it to turn around and get back on track.
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I think this is more the result of Fe, or possibly Te. Fe is definitely the harder to change course.
 
One of the things I love about being an INFJ is that I can read people very well. Aside from the fact that it comes naturally, I'd rather listen than talk. This gives me time to figure out and decipher people's words and body language.
I'm not sure what you mean by "insight coming slowly" to INFJs, but I will say that I can usually figure out someone's basic personality/motives after an hour or more of conversation. If I can't, it bugs the shit out of me and I'll keep trying until I do. The people that are the most complex to me leave the biggest impact.

You mentioned that you've always tried to figure out people's thoughts even before you knew about MBTI, and I completely understand. That's one of the reasons that finding out about this was such a relief to me. I've always wanted to understand people, almost to the point of frustration. And I guess now I know why. :)
 
cultureofrestraints said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "insight coming slowly" to INFJs, but I will say that I can usually figure out someone's basic personality/motives after an hour or more of conversation. If I can't, it bugs the shit out of me and I'll keep trying until I do. The people that are the most complex to me leave the biggest impact.

You mentioned that you've always tried to figure out people's thoughts even before you knew about MBTI, and I completely understand. That's one of the reasons that finding out about this was such a relief to me. I've always wanted to understand people, almost to the point of frustration. And I guess now I know why. :)
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Your last paragraph, especially the bolded sentence is a good example of what I'm talking about. You had to "find out", as did I.

In other words, you didn't just know about what was going on with you. We both needed something like the MBTI to put it into words.

The paragraph above that mentions something that I've done on an unconscious level all of my life, until about a year ago when I thought that INFJ fit me, and I thought that I understood the personality- even without having a good understanding of Fe.

(I used to think that Fe was simply externalizing feelings, which I do to an extent when I'm upset especially, but it's better if I write it down instead of trying to verbalize it.)

I don't know about you, but I have a bad habbit of thinking that I understand something without doing that much research. I think I see "patterns", and from my understanding of Ni, that's where it comes from.

And then I say to myself, "Well, you don't know that you are an INFJ. Who's to say that temperaments do, without a doubt, come from the brain? This a theory."

So going back to my introduction post, I don't want to use MBTI as an excuse to not take action. That's the reason I want to give up on it. It is true that I have not been the most action-oriented person throughout my life, but I don't want to blame it on being an introvert or an INFJ.
 
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cultureofrestraints said:
One of the things I love about being an INFJ is that I can read people very well. Aside from the fact that it comes naturally, I'd rather listen than talk. This gives me time to figure out and decipher people's words and body language.
I'm not sure what you mean by "insight coming slowly" to INFJs, but I will say that I can usually figure out someone's basic personality/motives after an hour or more of conversation. If I can't, it bugs the shit out of me and I'll keep trying until I do. The people that are the most complex to me leave the biggest impact.

You mentioned that you've always tried to figure out people's thoughts even before you knew about MBTI, and I completely understand. That's one of the reasons that finding out about this was such a relief to me. I've always wanted to understand people, almost to the point of frustration. And I guess now I know why. :)
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It boggles our minds when we meet someone that we just don't understand. I usually find out later that they are emotionally unstable or they do drugs. One girl in particular sticks out in my mind. For as long as I can remember we just clashed. I never understood her motives, she was volatile, yet blank. You could never tell when she was about to fly off the handle.
Turns out she was in and out of rehab and [to my knowledge] still does heavy drugs. Its sad what they can do to the human psyche.

-Anna
 
Annabreher said:
It boggles our minds when we meet someone that we just don't understand.
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That's true for me. I know I've pretty much said this already, but I want to make sure that I am understood, since some people seem to be asking for me to clarify how I define insight, etc. :blah:

I usually think I'm right, about most things, and especially things of this nature. I can be wrong, and when I am, I don't realize it until a long time after the fact.

For me, and I've wondered if this was true for others....

It's better if I have time to think over things and don't arrive at quick "insights" (or conclusions) about people, or anything else for that matter.
 
To me insight is almost instant, but where it came from stays mystery to me for long. I wouldn't know for others.
 
I agree with much of what has been presented here, except that INFJs, from what I've experienced & read, do not have the ability to be objective. I have to go against my private, independent nature, and bounce things off of types I know have objectivity as a strength, because I realize that my instincts are not always correct, and I base everything on how it "feels" to me.
 
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