Why a group just for INFPs?
“I feel like you’re the only one who really gets me.” For a mix of personal and ‘world-gone-mad’ reasons, I retreated into semi-isolation for a few years, and found it difficult to keep up more than a handful of my online friendships. Two of my closest, with whom I’ve had separate video calls many times, are, it turns out, INFP personality types — just like me. We didn’t know that, that wasn’t why we stayed in touch. We just ‘get’ each other in a way that feels affirming, safe and ‘good’. All three of us are non-stop learners. We’re endlessly curious about diverse things. We have each, in different ways, changed tack many times in the years we’ve known each other. We don’t judge each other for that. It’s just how we’re made. In other ways, we’re different. We began life on different continents, in different decades. None of us have lived in the same countries. We’re all women, but our pattern of close relationships has been different. We dress differently. And the ways we’ve earned a living have been different. All three of us love nothing more than helping other people, not in superficial ways, in life changing ways. We hate conflict or confrontation. We’re creative. A fountain of ideas. We need plenty of ‘alone time’. We’ve each done a lot of self-work to shed the conditioning that takes us away from who we really are underneath. We’ve each been through varying degrees of trauma and nervous system issues which we’ve had to rise above. And, we have our challenges. Not knowing when to stop. Risk of burn-out. Waxing and waning enthusiasms. Waxing and waning energy. So many ideas and interests, it’s sometimes impossible to choose. Waves of self-doubt. At times, hopefully now in our past, crippling perfectionism. None of these traits or life experiences are exclusively INFP, of course, but because we share the same combination, when we talk about how we went about things, how we felt, what we couldn’t tolerate any more, we understand each other. Skool is full of really fab communities where people are finding common ground because of a shared approach, or because they all want to learn the same topic, or shared skills, hobbies, interests or professions.