INFJ personality types and INFP personality types are known for being natural healers. Both types possess strong empathy, compassion, and easily attune to the moods and needs of others. Because we have a temperament that is so naturally suited to healing work, we tend to attract people with wounds, and to be attracted to people with wounds. Usually, the more severe and unhealed the wound is, the more strongly we will be attracted to that person.
In addition to this, we are most strongly attracted to those who have wounds that match up with our specific healing ability. Because this is so second nature for most of us, we don’t often realize that many of our relationships, especially romantic relationships, revolve around trying to heal the other person’s wounds. This results in us playing the “medic” for a good portion of the relationship. It may be that half the time we feel like an equal partner in the relationship, and the other half of the time we feel as if we are only there to patch up wounds and support the other person as they go through their healing process.
Frequently, we don’t realize that this is not actually an equal partnership. Most of us experienced childhoods where we were put in the position of having to assume the role of healer or mediator in the family, and so we’ve formed the unconscious belief that this is what loving relationships look like and we can’t hope for anything better, because this is all there is. Consequently, in adulthood we end up constantly playing the medic in relationships and it ultimately ends in pain and suffering.
I talk more about this in the video below:
I’m teaching a new class all about this topic. It’s called “Living for Yourself” and it starts on Thursday, Nov 30. I got the idea for this class based on the comments of the students I had in a previous class when we talked about how deeply INFJs struggle with living for ourselves, because we so often put the needs of everyone else first. This is a topic that hits hard for a lot of INFJs (and INFPs) so I expect this class will resonate with a lot of people.
Make sure you SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter HERE to get the next video in this series, and all the updates on when registration for Living for Yourself opens, and please also SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel here to get more videos on life as an INFJ or INFP, creativity and writing, and intuition. If you have any questions about the class, you can send them to me here.
I’ll see you soon with the next video in this series: INFJs and Lone Wolf Syndrome.
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.
