Infj: How to Be Happy, Feeling Misunderstood

By Krusha Patel

A journey of self discovery and change, find out how to better understand why you feel misunderstood. How to understand the behaviours and reactions of yourself and others better manage situations and thoughts.

Look into the stresses of relationships, careers and interactions of people. Find a way to help those with mental illnesses through self awareness.

“Many of us wonder what we actually want in life. Maybe better relationship experiences and communication? To better manage emotions and how we feel? We want to stop living a life that someone else has created for us, and start living a life by our own choices. I have tried to give answers to these and more in my new book,”

INFJ personalities, comprise of only 1% of the world’s population, they often feel misunderstood by others. The book addresses the feeling of being misunderstood alongside, mental health illnesses and shares mechanisms to provide some help when access to professional help is not available.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244200688

Book preview

Bibliography

Preface

I started my journey with self-discovery after a relationship I was previously in, broke down.  Many people out there are possibly having the same thought processes that I was, at the time.  Having experienced extensive counselling and coaching, it guided me to self-development and a journey of discovering and understanding others whilst discovering my personality type as an INFJ.

 Reflecting on my past childhood and teenage years, I felt especially misunderstood by my closest family members, with a feeling of not being able to express myself.  I still come across people today who have bad relationships with others, as they are trying to understand things from their perspective. Society today favors more outgoing people who are readily able to express themselves; some encourage their children to be more outgoing, because they were growing up.  It is ok if they are not the same, each person has their own beauty.

In a world where social media also has a huge presence, especially with marketing in business, it also influences how we interact as individuals. Some individuals may find that they are unable to speak to another person face to face but turn to social media and at times, present another side of themselves. It affects our ability to sit and connect with people, as our previous generations used to.  My grandparents and even my parents today often talk to neighbors and build a relationship of rapport and trust with them; this is becoming harder for the younger generations. In the journey I took and with the experience, I have gained a new perspective which I would like to share in this book.  It is as an INFJ looking at self-discovery and aspects of life, behavioral patterns and relationships. Although I specifically developed this book on the INFJ personality type, it is still applicable to help others gain clarity and a sense of understanding others. Whether you are looking to gain an understanding of yourself or others I hope you find something useful within these pages.

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to everyone who has helped bring this book to life.  To my friends and family, who have watched my life events and business adventures and have offered me endless support in so many ways.  I am indebted to you all.  I would like to thank my father, for being a compassionate and understanding father and encouraging me to do what I felt was right and supporting me on my journey.  My mother for encouraging me to stay strong when times get hard and to keep persisting, regardless.  Most importantly I would like to thank Alisha for being a part of my life for such a long time; by listening to you and watching you learn, I grow myself as a person by helping people to understand others and make changes in their lives for the better. I would also like to thank Vijay and Alice, for their inspiration and valuable input into making this book come to life.  To anyone who has been told or thought they do not understand someone or are looking to understand yourself more, this book is written to help you both understand others and in the process find more about yourself.

About the Author

Krusha Patel is a finance professional.  With many years in the finance industry, she felt as though there were not many people that she could connect to and over the years, felt as though her choice in profession and industry was not for her.  Krusha had discovered, after going through counselling, her personality type and began a journey of self-discovery only to find on the way that she could add value to the people in her life and to others. Her experiences and knowledge inspired her to share this knowledge with others throughout the United Kingdom.

She has helped several people gain an insight into the techniques of understanding other people with the use of NLP, despite a humble start in life.  She was born to Indian parents who immigrated from Africa under the rule of Idi Amin.  She currently resides in North West London.  Her achievements and experience have come from a journey of self-discovery that she wishes to share with people, in understanding each other or their parents, friends or children.  She continually is inspired by the feedback she receives in how this has helped people in understanding themselves and others.  She is an advocate of self-development and self-discovery and has met with influential business people such as John Lee, Vincent Wong and Armand Morin.

Introduction

Have you ever noticed that horoscopes, although sometimes true, can be generic and sometimes not fit a personality type? Have you ever found that you and someone else have the same star sign and could be born on the same day, but are two completely different people?  I believe that horoscopes can provide a general guidance to millions of people who believe it. However, on a deeper level it does not show or anticipate how an individual reacts to situations, based on their personality type. From horoscopes to personality types we will investigate the intricacies of personality.

A person tends to say, Oh he’s a bull-headed Taurus that’s why he’s so stubborn, but, would they be considering that he has a certain personality type and the psychology behind that is causing him to be that way, or react in a certain way?  It can be argued that horoscopes based on the date of being born at a certain time and astrology, where the planets and alignment of the stars have some effect on how we are as people.  Most people find this an accurate measure of what is going on in their lives, such as in Jupiter over certain months and in certain houses can wreak havoc, and in other cases star signs can be good progress.  Many people may know a form of astrology through the form of pre-natal charts.  Following the religion of Hinduism, I have been brought up to understand and believe in astrology.  When I was young, I even had a reading by a Hindu priest, in order to determine the alignment of the planets at my time of birth, to determine how it will affect different aspects of my life.  Even observing the Hindu calendar, it works in relation to the moon and the movement of the moon on certain days to observe fasts and religious days.  

It is likely that 97-98% of people would know their Horoscope or Zodiac sign based purely on the information of their birth date.  Personality is found to be much harder to measure.  Personality can be the making of a variety of factors from upbringing, environment, culture, genetics, childhood trauma, whether you are the first born or the middle child.  Personality of an individual can influence the choices or preferences someone makes in their lives, it is also true that the personality of a person can change during their lifetime as people want different things, experience change in their lives and grow as individuals.

The usefulness and validity of astrology and horoscopes or zodiac signs can be a completely speculative topic, as there are many people who operate as mediums and clairvoyants or psychics in these areas.  Millions of people, every day, read the horoscopes or zodiac signs, whether it’s the free metro paper given on the London underground or a magazine bought in the shops or newsagents. I am one of them - reading horoscopes in the daily section of the newspaper or what the New Year will bring me.  However, most have no idea about the Myers Briggs and personality types.  I recently discovered the Myers Briggs personality type testing is still used today within modern psychology.

There are various counsellors still using this type of test to determine a person’s personality. This, for counsellors, enables them to get a better understanding of how that particular personality type thinks and how they can be helped.  There are coaches and life coaches who may use this as well in order to determine, what areas are not so prominent and in what areas people would like to develop their personality.  Having had counselling previously after hitting a very low point in life and then seeking help, I was advised to take the Myers Briggs test, only to discover to be an INFJ.  I was advised also by both my coach and counsellor at the time, that many people of this personality type are looking to seek help via the form of counselling.  It led me to investigate the mindset and the personality of the INFJ, in order to help others, gain more understanding of this personality type.  From my own experience I wish there had been a more in-depth book, that I could turn to growing up or even something that my parents could have read, to understand my personality better. My hope and aim is to now bring such a book to you.

This book is designed to go into the deeper levels of the INFJ.  It will show how beautiful this soul is, how much they have to offer and the darker side of the INFJ.  It will explore the interpreted behaviours and reactions of the INFJ, in order to understand the mindset and behaviours, and gain a better understanding of this personality type.  This, in turn, will help those with young children of this personality type to better understand them and to see reasons why people behave or react in certain ways.  It is a book for those people who have friends or family members as INFJ, or who are themselves of this personality type, and wish to understand more, or to give this as a gift to someone.  This book is developed to help provide guidance to the characteristics and relationships of the INFJ, and create happiness and understand the dislikes, behaviours, misunderstandings and the dark side of the INFJ.

We will delve into this personality type, which is frequently described as the counsellor, protector, or the advocate.  The INFJ personality is known to be the rarest personality type in the spectrum, out of the sixteen personality test types.  There are few books regarding the INFJ personality that go into the depth of thinking of the INFJ and how they work; however, I find there is a huge online presence for these personality types, from social media groups linking these likeminded individuals together. There are many memes, pictures and posts on the internet about the perceived notions of the INFJ personality. The INFJ personality type stems from the Myers Briggs personality types, developed by an American author named Isabel Briggs Myers, who along with her mother Katherine Cook Briggs, created the MBTI or the Myers – Briggs Type indicator. This is based on a series of questions given in a test to determine the type of personality category you fall into.  According to Briggs, there are sixteen types of personality.

This test came about during a time of war and conflict when people were dying, getting injured and misunderstanding each other.  By developing the Myers Briggs Systems, both mother and daughter shared a vision to enable individuals to grow through understanding and appreciation and to enhance healthy relationships, harmony and productivity in diverse groups. They observed the details of human development and in individuals, observed how everyone can realize and reach their full potential.  Katherine Briggs then observed the personality of the most well-known and effective people in the world around her, and became determined to understand the origin of these differences. She then worked hard to create her formula of the psychology types and applied this to the world.

The main aspects underpinning each personality, which Briggs would mention in her observations, included the following:

Extraversion/Introversion: The extent of how one person directs attention and energy to the outside world, or the extent an individual looks and directs energy to the inside world around them.

Sensing/Intuition: Refers to how someone prefers to deal with information, such as focusing on and detecting the information, or the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning.

Thinking/Feeling: Making a decision using logic and objectivity or the making of decisions, considering other people and circumstances.

Judging/Perceiving: The way of how one interacts with the outer world preferring to get things decided, or in the way of interacting but by being mindful of new information and options.

These aspects are what Katherine used to conclude and create the sixteen different personality types.  More recently there has been additional research on personality types where each personality type has a finite number of subtypes.  This is a more recent development in determining differences between someone of the same personality type who may have more of one aspect than another.  This will be touched upon in the coming chapters.

PART I: Inner Workings

Chapter One: Characteristics of the INFJ

What does INFJ stand for?

The INFJ stands for introversion, intuition, feeling and judging.  These are the aspects that underline the INFJ personality type.  These will be looked at in detail from the point of the characteristics. This personality is often said to be compromising of only 1% of the world population of which most are female and less are male.  They are sometimes considered as dreamers and always thinking about great possibilities in the future.

Empathy

Empathy is portrayed as entering the private world of another individual and becoming comfortable with it.  It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the feelings which flow through the other person. These feelings could be fear, rage, pain, sadness, tenderness, confusion or whatever he or she is experiencing. It is temporarily putting yourself in the other person’s position, in order to understand their feelings and, to be able to communicate a guided response to what the other person is feeling.

Empathy is often seen as a weakness, even for the personality type of INFJ.  The main reason why is because many believe feeling and caring too much for others is a waste of time.  In today's modern world we tend to disregard the emotions of others.  However, for the INFJ, empathy is a trait that is of importance, even if the INFJ individual may find it draining.  Do you ever feel an overwhelming feeling by noise, people and their demands?  Do you ever feel lonely in a crowd but wholesome when alone?  These are some things that the mind of this personality type would contemplate about.

The INFJ as an individual will have a deep desire to help other people, whether it is a distressed neighbour with a missing cat, or just helping friends or parents.  They like to inspire and motivate themselves and the people around them.  They see the world as how it should be, not how it is currently, they aspire of making the world a better place for all.