The INFJ needs to create a space that allows the Ni self to take shape, to shape the INFJ, to shape the world. Like the many paradoxes that make up the INFJ, this space is also paradoxical. This space is in the world but not of the world.
The problem the INFJ has is the culture moves too fast or too slow, turns fear into a virtue, disguises hate as love, preaches lies as gospel truth, turning everything upside down. The cultural space is often a frenemy of the INFJ, pretending to assist while sabotaging and remiss, disorientating the INFJ from Ni time and space.
To re-enter Ni time, sometimes an INFJ needs to exit the temporal, sit in their temple, to reengage with the supertemporal. In other words, the INFJ needs to create the space around themselves that enables them to live within and from themselves.
How do we do this? There is an ancient proverb that says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” If what the INFJ is doing is not fulfilling, chances are something or someone is occupying the heart in a way that is detrimental, tethering the INFJ away from who they are to be and do.
Guarding the heart requires not letting anyone or anything in that is not worthy of occupying a single fragment of the heart space. This is a challenge for many INFJs, as they have often been conditioned to adjust and accommodate themselves to others, opening themselves up to whatever is in the heart of the other.
Imagine the heart as a garden, and paint a picture of it, with a fence around it, and a gate that opens from the inside. Looking around the current state of the garden, what condition is it in? Who or what is in the garden? What belongs in the garden and what doesn’t? What belongs but needs a change? What have they done to the garden? Take notice of that which belongs, and how that feels. Now take notice of that which does not belong, and how that feels.
As little INFJs, the garden is tended to by others, sometimes carelessly, allowing the garden to receive too much sunlight or not enough. Notice however that the latch is on the inside not on the outside of the gate. As adult INFJs, the INFJ can take full ownership of the gate and garden inside, and decide what is let in and let out.
Giving life back to Ni requires identifying everything and anyone that doesn’t belong in the garden, and removing it. This is not easy, and in some areas of life is not always possible, at least in an ideal sense. However, starting simply and where one can is all it takes to begin noticing the Ni difference.
The garden is your heart, and you decide who or what occupies it. Taking care of your heart, takes care of Ni, restoring relationship with it. As the proverb says, everything you do flows from your heart. Get your heart (garden) right, and you will soon be pursuing the desires of it.
Scott Morgan is a professional Counsellor and a certified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator practitioner. To make a booking enquiry click here, or to find out more about what we do click here.