3 Things about being a Highly Sensitive INFP that might Help You.

A lot of highly sensitive people are INFP and INFJ personality types. This post is for all you kindred spirits out there who feel like they are a walking contradiction. As a sensitive, creative INFP, these are a few of the things I have learned about my own confusing, bewildering, sensitive self.

They might help you as well. So, here we go!

Throwing our hat over the fence and burning some bridges can be good for highly sensitive INFPs.

As a multipassionate creative person, I spent my 20s going back and forth between what art form I wanted to commit to.I loved to dance, do photography and write. How could I choose among them? Choosing felt like sacrificing a part of myself. But in the meanwhile, not choosing was turning me into “an echo upon echo” of a person. There was all that potential, but nothing was realized.

When that pain of not being who I was became greater than my confusion about what to choose, it was then that I consciously committed to writing and it was then that things started happening. Finally, I started growing from the seed of the artiste I always was into a rooted tree.

Whether you identify with being artistic or not, choosing is really what I wanted to talk about. As INFPs who love possibilities, sometimes, we can keep our options too open. We are at the opposite end of the spectrum from people who are too rigid.

But making anything, making something, in the real world means that we are limited by time and energy. We might be many selves, many things. But we can only start becoming these things one by one.

This doesn’t mean that you stop painting or stop trying to find an elegant answer to a mathematical problem, it means that when you choose something, that’s your main thing, at least for now.

This is what I would say to my younger self: Don’t be scared of choosing. Make a choice. Explore it. Give it some time, and see how you feel about it. And then, you will have enough information, enough “data” to really understand and even choose something else, if that’s what you really want.

It takes highly sensitive INFPs a while to realize that our intense feelings are often invisible to most people.

It took me until my 30s to realize that my intense feelings are almost invisible to others. That’s because INFPs lead with Introverted Feeling. Our feelings are our inner landscape. We usually don’t talk about them easily and definitely not with people we are not close to.

That meme of INFP feelings being like an iceberg with only the tip of the iceberg visible sums it up nicely. I have had people tell me things like “You are so calm,” and while I am a calm person in many different ways, I have also had this said to me in times of my life when I was decidedly not calm.

These were times when there was a tempest churning deep in the ocean, but people who didn’t know me well just couldn’t see it because I didn’t express it to them. It was personal.

So, most people you meet as an INFP will not see how intensely you feel things. This is also the reason why people get shocked when INFPs “suddenly” put their foot down about something.

We are generally very laidback about the small stuff. We don’t care whether you want to do things in a certain order. We’ll go along if you are really excited about this new restaurant you want to try. We are both adaptable and accommodating. But that can make some people think that we don’t have strong preferences or values.

We do.

Whatever the big stuff for us, whether it’s how women should be treated or what we feel about the environment or something else entirely, we really care about this issue. And if our boundaries are crossed around it, then, we are no longer that laidback.

This can be a huge surprise to some people in our lives.

So, it’s important to understand who the people around us are and realize that many of them actually can’t see the multicolored, kaleidoscopic, changing, choppy world of our feelings, this world that is our real home.

Knowing this, we can then choose to either express a little more of who we are or, if the person is not for us, simply accept that we are different people. Not everyone can see us. But some can.

And we are free to go and find those people.

“Not taking things personally” can mean a couple of different things for highly sensitive INFPs.

This is a hard one. This can also be a touchy topic for many of us INFPs because as highly sensitive people, we have often been told that “You shouldn’t take it to heart,” or “You are overreacting,” or “Don’t be so oversensitive” as a way to discount our valid feelings.

So, if someone is discounting valid feelings or saying these things as a way to avoid responsibility for the ways in which they hurt you, then by all means, do take things personally.

Feelings are meant to be felt and understood and processed.

But in addition to this, there is also a bigger layer.

Not taking things personally means seeing the reality of the other person.

As I have grown older, I see more and more how things that I was called “rebellious” for was simply me being non-conforming. Most INFPs I know don’t “rebel” just to rebel unless they are teenagers.

When we are called rebellious and as if we are somehow “less mature,” it’s because we are doing something that doesn’t conform to the norms. We are not doing this “rebellious” thing just for the heck of it.

We are doing it because there is a value we hold dear that has been threatened.

It’s really important for us to realize that we are not “rebelling” in some childish way as other people might try to tell us but that we are challenging a norm by not adhering to it.

I remember going on a historical walk in India where we talked about how people who fought in the freedom struggle to liberate India from British rule were called “rebels” once upon a time.

Now, they are called freedom fighters.

So, who calls you a “rebel” and what they mean is extremely important.

We need to be discerning and not take labels personally as highly sensitive INFPs. As sensitive people, we are not challenging a norm “to be difficult.” or because we don’t care about people. We are challenging it even though we are highly sensitive types and hate confrontation.

There is something here that we truly, deeply care about and that feels like a whiplash to our soul if we didn’t stand up for it. Women, for example, are often told that they are “rebellious” when they step out of a norm.

It is a good thing to be rebellious like this.

So, consider the source and don’t take it personally when someone labels you something “negative.”

I know it’s much harder for highly sensitive, empathetic people to stand up for themselves because they do care about other people, and if you are doing it right now and feeling like you are “being bad,” I feel for you.

You are doing hard inner work. Take care of yourself. The feelings are there because of an old belief. Do some journaling, locate what belief is getting triggered and update that belief.

If the belief says:”I have to take care of other people’s feelings,” try writing down something else that feels right. “I am compassionate towards others and our feelings are our responsibility.” Keep brainstorming until you find a new statement that feels right.

Affirmations don’t work if they ring false to you. And now, once you have this new belief articulated, write this down everyday. Say it to yourself. Use it to guide your behavior. And those old feelings that are tied to the old belief will become fainter and fainter.

This is inner work. It takes time, but you can do it!

I hope you found something that is helpful or insightful for your own journey as a sensitive INFP in this post.

I hope you keep walking on your path, keep putting yourself out there, keep using your voice even if it trembles because what we are trying to earn by taking our work into the world is not that others choose us, but that we learn to choose ourselves, that we learn to be who we are and be for ourselves even when others don’t approve or understand what we are doing.

With love, Ritu.

Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey, which TEDx speaker Andy Mort calls “a fascinating insight into the life of a highly sensitive person and emotional empath.”

Ritu also works as a writing coach & ghostwriter and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This post first appeared on Ritu’s website for highly sensitive creatives: Walking Through Transitions.