Tag: intuitives

The Hermit, Introverted Intuitives, and Letting Our Lights Shine

How intuitives emerge from a Hermit Phase.

As an INFJ personality type, I’ve always felt a particular affinity for The Hermit card.    After all, going into Hermit mode is one of the primary defense mechanisms of intuitives and introverts.   When we feel overwhelmed or hurt, we pull up the drawbridge, slam the gate shut, and self-isolate until we heal.  Sometimes that takes a few weeks and sometimes it can turn into years.

I’ve recently begun focusing on another part of The Hermit card, though, which is the lamp that he’s holding aloft.  He isn’t just hiding out anymore – he’s illuminating a path for others to follow.

 INTUITIVES DON’T LEAD

Doing that is NOT something that highly intuitive or empathetic people are inclined to do, for a couple of reasons.  First – and most obvious – is the fact that most intuitives are also introverts.  We’re not the sort of people who want to have a great deal to do with other people, much less try to lead them anywhere. 

In a very real sense, that’s more of the path of the extrovert.  Extroverts love, love, LOVE to charge out into society, organize everything, and tell other people what they should be doing and when they should be doing it. Which is fine, because someone has to put together the Christmas parties, right?  Better them than us.

INTUITIVES AND SELF-IMAGE

Another reason that intuitives seldom assert themselves as, “leaders,” is that many of us have really rotten self-images.  We feel as if we don’t fit in, as if we’re the original square peg in a round hole.  

Some of that flows out of the fact that society is, once again, pretty much designed by extroverts.  Starting in elementary school, we’re told that daydreaming and wanting to be by ourselves is, “bad.”  How many of us received the dreaded report card that said, “Doesn’t play well with other children?”  Yikes.  

That continues into adult life, of course.  Just look at the modern work spaces, with cubicles piled on top of each other and no sense of privacy or personal space.  They’re extrovert heaven and introvert hell and if we don’t like them there must be something wrong with us.  It turns out we don’t play well with other adults, either.

INTUITIVES AND DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

There’s a further reason for intuitive introverts having terrible self-images, which is – guess what? – our families.  When I first started digging into intuitive personality types I was astounded at the number of people who reported that they had come from dysfunctional families.  And by, “dysfunctional,” I mean families where one or both parents had serious mental issues, addiction issues, or abuse issues.  

Frequently, a part and parcel of being a terrible parent is blaming the child for your bad parenting skills.  A classic example is a parent who gets drunk, beats the hell out of the kid, and then says, “You made me do that.  If you were a better child, I wouldn’t have to beat you.”  The end result is that the kid is convinced that he or she isn’t a, “good,” person and that they’re somehow to blame for the abuse.  We go into life with the basic premise that we’re flawed and unloveable.

INTUITIVES AND COGNITIVE INTELLIGENCE

So, all of these factors (and more) lead the introverted intuitive to feel that she’s in no position to lead anyone, anywhere.  After all, we’re odd balls and we’re just not quite good enough.  But is that borne out by facts?  Consider these statistics from Susan Storm’s article in PsychologyJunkie:

Of all of the personality types, INFJs have the second highest grades in high school.

INFJs have the highest first semester grades in college and some of the highest undergraduate grades.

INFJs are among the most persistent personality types in actually finishing college.

INFJs tend to score well above average in standardized IQ tests.

INFPs and INFJs read more than any other personality types.  While the average American reads 12 books per year, INFJs average 67 books per year.

INTUITIVES AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

While some introverted intuitives are full blown empaths, ALL of them are highly empathetic.  And by empathetic, I mean that they can, “read,” another person’s emotions so deeply and so quickly that they may appear to be psychic.  

When you meet an introverted intuitive, they are instantly scanning your body language, your eyes, your facial expressions, the tone of your voice and even the clothes that you chose to wear that day.  All of this happens so rapidly that the intuitive may not even be aware that he’s doing it.  What’s more, intuitives frequently feel that everyone else must have that same level of perception, simply because it feels so natural to them.  But, no, most people don’t do that.

As Eileen McKusick, author of Tuning the Human Biofield put it, “It’s like having an antenna that goes a little higher than everyone else’s.  We pick up information that normal people don’t.”

COMING OUT OF THE HERMIT PHASE

What usually pulls introverted intuitives out of their Hermit phase is a desire to help other people.  That can manifest as personally as wanting to help a friend who’s gone through a divorce or as broadly as wanting to make some contribution to humanity as whole.  Intuitives are, after all, highly empathetic, which means that we really DO feel other people’s pain, almost as if it were our own.  

In order to help, though, we have to get rid of that old, “I’m not good enough,” self-image.  When we combine our intellectual intelligence with our emotional intelligence, we are actually extraordinarily capable of helping others heal.

It’s estimated that up to 52% of the population may fall into the introvert section of the personality types.  BUT . . . introverted intuitives are a very tiny slice of that.  Only 1 to 2% of the world population are INFJs and only 4.4% are INFPs.  We have unique gifts and unique perspectives.  We just need the self confidence to go along with those gifts. To let our lights shine on other people’s darkened paths.

Donald Trump Voodoo Dolls, Recovering from the Election, and the Burning Times

Developing a strategy for dealing with Christian Nationalism and recovering from the trauma of the election.

Well, it’s been a few days since the United States election and many of us are still trying to get over the shock, sadness, and anger of what happened.  Still, it’s important to focus on how we’re going to survive for the next couple of years.  That’s especially true for people who are empaths and intuitives.

IT’S A GRIEF PROCESS

First of all, it’s important to realize that this is a genuine grief process.  Millions of us are experiencing this just as if something we’ve loved deeply has died.  There’s a sense that the America we believed in, the America that we thought we knew and could depend upon, is gone.

If you’ve experienced the death of someone you treasured, you know this feeling.  It’s as if the entire world has tilted off of it’s axis and nothing will ever be the same.  There is deep sadness, anger, and fear.

So the first step is to be as gentle with ourselves as we can be.  Acknowledge and honor our emotions.  Try to do all of the things that a therapist might recommend in the midst of grief.  Stay in the present moment.  Take care of ourselves physically.  Deal with the sadness without descending into depression.  Deal with with the fear without descending into anxiety. Deal with the anger without losing our compassion. 

We have a little over two months to move through the grief and heal our energy.  We need to use that time wisely.

RECOGNIZING REALITY

Healing our energy and staying positive does NOT mean being foolishly optimistic.  We can and we must contribute as much light and love to the collective energy as we can.  That doesn’t mean that we can visualize this election out of existence or immediately change things here on Earth School.  There are some harsh realities ahead and we need to be prepared for them.

IT ISN’T DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump is a gibbering idiot.  He’s always had serious personality disorders and they’ve gotten much worse.  This is a 78 year male who is morbidly obese, in a constant state of narcissistic rage, and is suffering from dementia.  It’s obvious to any objective observer that he is not going to last for four years in the White House and will either die or be replaced because of mental incompetence.

In a word, Trump is nothing more than a figurehead.  He was used by a political group to seize power in the United States, but he is not in charge of them.  They are extremely intelligent and have planned this meticulously, so there can be no doubt that they know Trump is a paper tiger.

THE CHRISTIAN TALIBAN

The people who are really in charge of this political coup d’état are Christian nationalist extremists.  Many people refer to them as, “the Christian Taliban” because they share so many views with that group.  They are misogynistic to a point where they’re determined to turn women into breeding livestock and take away all of their basic rights.  They are racist, they are xenophobic, and they are fascists.  They have already taken over our Supreme Court and at least one branch of our legislature and now they’ve claimed the prize of the Presidency.  

These are the people who are now running our country and Donald Trump and his supporters mean nothing to them.  

THE BURNING TIMES

Wiccans and Witches refer to the Inquisition as, “the burning times,” in obvious reference to the thousands of people who were burned at the stake.  It’s important to remember that it wasn’t, “only,” witches who were massacred in that period of madness.  It was also Jews, Gypsies, Wise Women, Heretics, and anyone else who didn’t fit in to the mold of, “good Christians.”

We saw a reiteration of that in Hitler’s reign of terror.  The, “norm,” is defined very narrowly as a certain entitled class of people and anyone who is outside of the norm is, “the enemy within.”  Any time that a fascistic movement takes over the rule of a population, they will immediately start weeding out anyone who disagrees with them and they don’t care how brutal they have to be to do that.

IT’S OUR FIGHT, TOO

Am I suggesting that the Christian fascists who have taken over our country are going to start burning people in the public square?  No.  I’m simply saying that – left unchecked – they’re fully capable of it.  

If you’re a Tarot reader, or you like to toss the I Ching or play with Oracle cards, you’re on their list.  It may not happen immediately, but they WILL get around to it.  It’s in their book:

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” – Exodus, 22-18

They will first go after the marginalized minorities and the people who are powerless, but they will eventually go after us, as well.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE

I have no doubt that a certain number of my brothers and sisters here have already unpacked their black candles and voodoo dolls and are busily sticking pins into Donald Trump effigies.  That’s certainly one way to approach the coming threat and I totally understand it if that’s where you’re at.

The problem, though, is that you can’t be an empathic person or an intuitive and carry hatred in your heart at the same time.  Not for long.  It’s not our energy.  It’s not our essence at our core. It will eventually destroy who we are rather than change who they are.

A STRATEGY FOR RIGHT NOW

At this moment, there are only 4 things that we can do:

1 – Heal – Give ourselves time to heal psychologically and spiritually.  If our basic energy is fucked up, we’ll be much less effective when we need to be.

2 – Think and Ask for Guidance – We are much more creative than they are.  We need to come up with new solutions for dealing with this new reality and I have every confidence that we will.

3 – Stand Up and Speak Out – We can’t let this temporary loss silence us.  They are planning to start setting up concentration camps in our country in about two months and that’s just the beginning.  We have to speak out against every single injustice and atrocity that they have planned.

4 – Love – Yes, I understand that getting our heads and hearts into a place of love right now is extremely difficult.  Think of it as energy, though.  The collective unconscious has been filled with a flood of hatred and the ONLY spiritual antidote to hatred is love.  That doesn’t mean we need to go out and hug a Trumpster or even try to send healing to them.  It does mean that we need to generate as much love in our hearts, our auras and our environments as we possibly can as a counter force to their energy.  If they’re the disease, we’re the cure.

And finally, I would just like to say, “Namaste’” to all of you who are reading this.  That translates as, “I bow to the sacred within you.”  Let’s keep that sacred light burning bright.

PEACE AND LOVE – DAN

Being a Misfit, Being Heard, and the Five of Pentacles

The pain of never being understood and how to use it for growth.

About a year and a half ago, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test and discovered that I belong to a group called the, “INFJ.”  INFJs are essentially introverted intuitives and are as rare as hair on a frog.  Only 1% of the population are INFJs and less than 1/2 of 1% of the population are INFJ males.

Americans love to think of themselves as being special and unique, of course, so a small cottage industry has arisen around being an INFJ.  Claiming to be an INFJ has become sort of a short hand to tell other people how incredibly evolved and spiritual and sensitive you are. 

There are a kazillion videos and books pointing out how FABULOUSLY wonderful INFJs are and you can even buy INFJ tee shirts and bumper stickers just in case some mere mortals missed the bulletin.

I, on the other hand, looked at the description of the personality type and thought, “Oh, I am SO fucked.”

One of the strongest human drives is the need to be heard and acknowledged.  To have the feeling that other human beings – or even ONE human being – truly hears what we’re saying and understands what we’re feeling and thinking.

American couples spend millions of dollars every year going to therapists to learn how to communicate and to listen to each other.  In other words, how to be heard by our partners.

Many of us derive a great deal of pleasure from social media sites like FaceBook because we feel that someone out there is actually hearing us and acknowledging our existence.

Thic Nhat Hahn and other Buddhist masters have stressed the importance of deep and compassionate listening.  Hearing what the other person is really saying rather than composing a clever response while they’re speaking.

Actually being heard for who we are seems to heal the human heart.

While Americans may worship the concept of being, “unique,” they don’t really see the flip side of it, which is that the more different you are, the less likely it is that other people will actually understand you.  Some people might look at the INFJ personality configuration and think, “Oh, boy, I’m SO special.”  What they’re not seeing is that 99% of the people in the world don’t see the world the same way that the INFJ sees it and probably never will.

And that can break your heart. That can drive you to end it.

There are, of course, many other ways besides being an INFJ that will cause a person to not, “fit in.”  I was born into an Army family and military brats are renowned for feeling like perpetual outsiders in the civilian community.  It might be caused by belonging to a racial or ethnic minority, or having a disability, or being gay or trans, or not fitting the cultural standards of being physically attractive.  Janis Ian expressed that so poignantly in her song, “At Seventeen”,:

I learned the truth at seventeen 

That love was meant for beauty queens 

And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles 

Who married young and then retired . . .

High School, perhaps above all else, teaches us the cruel realities of not fitting in.  

Oddly, not fitting in – being a misfit –  can eventually quit breaking our hearts and act as a springboard to spiritual growth.  That only happens, though, when we finally surrender and just give up.  

What happens to a person who truly doesn’t fit in when they try to fit in?  Essentially, they deny their own reality and desperately attempt to, “blend in.”  They try to become what they think other people will like.  They hollow themselves out more and more in the quest to have someone, even one person, understand them and love them for who they really are.

The paradox, of course, is that they’re trying to trick someone into loving them for who they are by being who they aren’t, so even if they snag a friend or a lover or a partner, they’re still not really being seen or loved.

Eventually, if we keep that up, we come to feel like the beggars in the Five of Pentacles, always on the outside in the cold while the, “normal,” people are inside the church receiving all of the blessings that seem to be their birthrights.

There’s something incredibly liberating, though, when we finally admit to ourselves that we don’t fit in and never will.  When we finally admit that we’re never going to be one of the beautiful, golden people who seem to wear their lives like a tailored glove.

No, it doesn’t mean that we’ll finally be heard or acknowledged by other people.  In fact, the more we become our authentic selves, the more likely it is that other people will not hear us.

But . . . we can finally hear our Selves.