INFJ personality types and INFP personality types often feel unseen and unheard in relationships. They also share a pattern of abandonment and betrayal in relationships. Most INFJ personality types and INFP personality types understand that this pattern is a pattern that they also experienced in childhood, when one or both parents were untrustworthy and/or emotionally unavailable, but they don’t understand why they keep repeating the pattern in adulthood. They also don’t understand why it seems they actually attract people who will end up betraying them, including narcissistic and other manipulative personality types.
The reason that INFJ personality types and INFP personality types experience a pattern of betrayal in their lives is because of a deeply ingrained pattern of self-abandonment. When a person engages in consistent self-abandonment, the indicators of this behavior can be seen clearly by others, including narcissists. Self-abandonment means that a person routinely violates their own boundaries in order to meet the needs or preferences of others. When a person violates their own boundaries like this enough times, the person begins to subconsciously distrust themselves and doubt their own decisions. There are small ways that other people can pick up on this pattern of self-abandonment in INFJ personality types and INFP personality types and they then become easy targets for manipulators.
In order to interrupt the pattern of betrayal it’s important for INFJ personality types and INFP personality types to heal the pattern of self-abandonment by beginning to honor their own needs and limits before the preferences of others, no matter what kind of negative reaction they receive. This takes time and training, but it can be done. The key is to start with small steps toward asserting boundaries.
I talk more about this in the video below:
I’m teaching a new class focusing on issues like these for INFJs and INFPs. We’ll be learning how repressed anger is a common theme for INF people, and exploring how to live a fully unconventional life that deviates from the cultural norm, among other topics. The new class is called INFJ and INFP Life. It begins on Wed Mar 27 and runs for three weeks.
I got the inspiration to teach this class from my last class, in which so many INFJs and INFPs showed up with questions about how their high intuition and high sensitivity affects their relationships, creativity, and overall life. Finding out you’re an intuitive personality type—with all that means and all that comes with it—can be overwhelming to say the least, even for those who have known they’re intuitive for a long time. I’m hoping this class will shed light on some of the more hidden facets of being an intuitive personality type and also help bring people together to meet other intuitives.
Make sure you SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter HERE to get all the updates on when registration for INFJ and INFP Life opens, and please also SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel here to get more videos on life as an INFJ or INFP. If you have any questions about the class, you can send them to me here.
I’d love to see you in this class!
Lauren Sapala is the author of Writing on the Intuitive Side of the Brain, The INFJ Writer, The INFJ Revolution, and the creator of Energy and Intuition for INFJs, an online course for INFJs on intuition, relationships, creativity, and more. She is also currently offering a free copy of her book Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers to anyone who signs up for her newsletter. SIGN UP HERE to get your free copy.
