Personality

My dearest friend Nikki has peaked my interest in personality types.  She had told me that discovering that she was an INTJ really improved the way she looked at life, and helped her to understand herself more fully.  So, I decided to give a little more thought to my own personality type.

After taking several quizzes and reading about each of the personality traits and what they mean, I've discovered that I am an INFJ.  Introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging.  This seems about right.
Although I think there are no absolutes and it's hard to fit EXACTLY with ALL the traits of a given personality type (certain situations may call you to be a sensor, for instance, when normally you would be intuitive; or a perceiver as opposed to a judger, a thinker as opposed to a feeler, etc.)
Knowing that I'm an INFJ has helped me to understand a little more why I react to certain situations in certain ways, why I tend to be very sensitive and compassionate (and yet can't STAND touchy-feely things), why I love to be with people but need the time to process it, why I'm always looking deeper and not merely at the surface, etc.

My most important discovery is that I am a feeler.  I've always been ashamed of showing emotions and feeling emotions and allowing emotion to influence my reactions and decisions...but now, understanding that feeling is just a part of my personality is helping me to accept this.
I used to believe that if you were a feeler, you were weak and vulnerable.  In a sense, that is true if you allow your emotions to be manipulated.  But on the contrary, when you are a feeler, you have to develop a hard outer shell.  There are times when you do have to contain your emotions, times when you have to push them aside, times when you have to deal with emotional situations.  And when you are a feeler, this is hard.  I still struggle with the aftermaths of feelings from things that happened over a year ago -- but you know what? Dealing with feelings when you are a feeler makes you a badass. It's not easy, and it requires temperance and warrior-like strength.
There are some times when something will happen - we'll watch a sad movie in youth group, someone snaps at me, I face a disappointment - and I have to hold it in.  And I do.  Until I get home.  Then I sit on my floor and cry for a bit, wipe off my face, and move on.  It's easy for me to say, "Wow, I'm such a wimp.  I need to learn to not feel as much," when in reality, I'm doing all that a feeler can do: wait to express their feelings at the appropriate time.  And it's difficult!

Second to realizing that I'm not a wimp is the fact that closure is imperative.  Whenever I get in an argument or have a falling-out with someone, I never feel completely secure until I have forgiven them and/or reconciled with them in some way.  Even if the friendship is not restored, just to know that they don't hate me and to let them know that I still care for them as a fellow child of God means the world to me.  I believe that has something to do with the mix of feeling/judging in my personality, but I'm not entirely sure.

The thing with desiring closure is that, sometimes, I have to risk my feelings for the sake of closure.  But I'm willing to do so.  Whether it's striking up a conversation with a guy I'm attracted to, sending the first message to an ex after a while just to make sure their life is going alright, approaching a friend to apologize when I've wronged them; these instances require putting my feelings on the line.  Perhaps they don't have to, but with my feeling personality, it basically feels like I'm setting my heart on the track in front of a train.  The other person is the train, and they have the opportunity to run over my heart if they wish (whether they realize it or not.)
Maybe it doesn't have to be this way, and I need to somehow figure out a way to separate the feeling part of my personality at times.  But for now, if I can embrace it, it's a step in the right direction.

What's your personality type?