Episodit
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Hello there and Happy New Year! Today, I recorded an episode all about Change. Change is a necessary aspect of the self-discovery journey. While many seek self-development to find more security in themselves, you may find that that through the pursuit of stability — you will also find change. In fact, change is the only constant. True security comes from the full embrace of one’s creative potential, and learning to work with that energy. Listen here, on Spotify or iTunes, or wherever you get your podcast. Or, check out the conversation on YouTube.
Change, The Nature of Self Discovery, & The Transcendent Function:
Currently, I am in a state of flux. I began the year with a lot of endings, and am starting this new one with new beginnings. It has felt difficult to share as often as I’d like when I’m in-between worlds. The goalposts keep moving, as new values are solidified and priorities shift. Showing up as myself has felt awkward and clunky, as I’m still in the middle of shedding old skin.
This episode discusses change as it relates to the self-discovery process as well as Jung’s transcendent function. But on a personal level, I am in the thick of it. Change in my personal life and inconsistent surroundings has made it feel nearly impossible to show up online consistently. It feels lame to feel the need to apologize for that, but here I am. The ideas in this episode may be universally applicable to many things, but they also describe how I have been feeling about the act of content creation itself.
That being said, I am excited to breathe new life into my creative projects in 2023. In order to do that, some things may need to die first. A lot of that “death” involves pressure I have put on myself. It involves releasing aspects of my identity that my ego has become too attached to.
On top of that, the media landscape is changing tremendously — as well as how we interact with digital tools It’s easy for last year’s goals, or even last month’s marketing tactics, to begin to feel stale. When you combine that with interpersonal change, the whole thing can get confusing. I’m in the process of building systems that are a bit more flexible, to prevent setting goals that end up making me feel trapped in the future. As I figure out how I’d like to communicate these things, I will continue to share them here. Thanks for tagging along, even though I feel like a bit of a mess.
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Another episode, fresh out of the oven! This one is about the unknown, and it’s a rambly one. I have the transcript below, if you prefer to read. But I’d recommend to sit back, relax, listen and reflect. Let me know how you have been handling the unknown lately by leaving a comment.
Watch Psyche Design Season 2 Episode 3 on YouTube:
Transcript:
Hello. So today I'm going to be discussing the unknown. And one of the fun things about that topic is that I actually have no idea what I'm about to talk about. So, first of all, for those of you who follow the stars, Jupiter just went into Pisces this morning. So, I've been wanting to do this topic for a while, and I thought, why not right now? Because the energy of Pisces is a mutable water sign. So this energy now, in the collective is more focused on embracing the vastness in the chaoticness of every potential emotion that can ever be experienced is one way of putting it. When I think of Pisces, I often think about taking leaps of faith and marveling at the unknown, potentially.
So my personality type pattern (most of you know this, because that's what my channel has been about) is my type preferences are ENFJ. And with that, J, the stereotype goes that, you know, the preference for judging can be a challenge for embracing the unknown, I have had such a hard time with the unknown, for as long as I can remember. In fact, I've been having some more discussions with my parents lately about what I was like, as a child, as I have been. I think it's been a year and a half ago, now that I have been diagnosed with ADHD. And I've been exploring my neurodivergent traits, reading things about that, and trying to connect some dots. Part of the reason why I've wanted to do that is because, you know, I discovered personality type theory, whatever I was 17, I'm now 28. This model of Personality Typing has been with me for over a decade now. And I definitely wouldn't be as confident as an adult and okay with myself if I didn't have it. Because so much of me even recognizing that I was an intuitive at a young age, validated a lot of the ways in which I felt outside the norm.
And, anyway, I've been thinking about the ways in which I've always felt outside the norm in one of those ways. You guys are gonna just have to deal with me being rambly this time around, because I'm a little bit out of practice whenever it comes to talking to a camera. So um, for those of you who want to take the windy road with me, thank you so much. Anyway, um, what I was going to say with that is that I, my mom was, you know, sort of telling me how even as a young child, I would get into these outbursts. When things did not go according to plan. There was one time she told me about, that I was like five. And they, my mom, said that we had to leave the living room area, we were at my grandparents, because they were painting the walls and that it was going to be a different color, it was going to go from beige to peach. And apparently, whenever I got back, and I saw the colors, I freaked out and I was like, “They are not different colors! This is the same exact color as what it was before. You lied to me!” And I think that that is such a hilarious example of I think you could really see, like, the pitfalls of my psyche, even as a young child, it would be interesting to think about what things you used to have meltdowns about as a child in throw a fit about. And if you can notice any themes of how those things in a way, even if you aren't going to act out now, those things might still tell you something about your blind spots. Because in that as an example, not only was I not someone that was very aware of the differences between the colors, but I also had an idea in my mind of what I thought those colors would be. And whenever reality did not match up to what I had in my mind. It was very overwhelming for me and somy preference for Introverted Intuition as a function I think is sort of seen here. And that my default is to kind of envision an intuitive image or symbol or whatever, kind of envision something abstractly in my mind. That may or may not line up with reality.
And I'm realizing that a big reason why I will try and spend the time to think about the future and envision it is because of how physically overwhelming it is, for me to make a decision on the spot, or to adjust to things not going according to plan.
And I think that a lot of people who have a J in their type code, a lot of people who, who are that way, who are Js, you could say, we prefer to do that introverted perception ourselves beforehand — so that whenever life hits us in the face, it's not that much of a surprise. And I think that for the most part, doing that can save me some energy, but it also could be very draining. And so part of this has to do with having extroverted sensing as a valued but weaker function for me. Because it is very draining for me to use extroverted sensing, as much as I wish that I could use it.
For me, in my type code, extroverted sensing is associated with the Forever child, the inner child as the tertiary third position, it's related to that archetype of almost like a Peter Pan-like kid who never wants to grow up. And I can very naively believe that I can just handle anything or push through anything to some extent, but I also could naively and almost childishly buckle under the pressure of a moment changing and me having to meet that moment. It could go one of two extremes. And this is kind of how it goes for a lot of people with their Tertiary function is that there's a childlike quality, both in the optimism and in the fear that you have around that thing.
So for me, I can optimistically envision my life… if I want to make a video every single week, and I want to have a newsletter every single week. And I want to make an album this year, and I want to be in two improv classes. And I want to audition for this improv class and I want to be singing in this choir, and I want to work for myself. And I want to, you know, make new friends, move out, potentially move out of the state, and potentially start dating. So if you're overwhelmed listening to that, imagine I'm being inside my brain.
So I, anyway, um, let's get back to the topic of unknown…
…and I will get back, I will connect all of these dots. So, this podcast Psyche Design has gone through many different renditions. This YouTube channel has gone through many different phases,seen me in many phases of growth. And part of what can be difficult is that once I get once you get into a routine of what works, and you follow these social scripts, of, okay, this is how I make my videos. This is how I use Twitter. This is how I, whatever… like I had everything all set up to where and what I need to do to conserve my energy is have everything all set up to where the moment I have an inspiration, the tools are there instantly — so that I don't have to make a big decision about it. So that kind of connects to what I was saying earlier, as I think as an NJ in the way that I use my introverted intuition is that I try and save energy for the in-the-moment, physical things by mapping it all out in my head before. So
I try and save energy because for example, let's say I want I feel like making music. If my MIDI keyboard is all in a box, and I don't know where the chord is, and I don't know where the speakers are. It's going to take me a lot of energy to actually get it set up. But if I've arranged my room where I have that station over there for making music and then this station over here for journaling, and then all of this that if …
Another thing I did with this is that I now have this little wellness rack or I call it my wellness rack. It's just a rolling rack thing. But I, I was thinking like, whenever I'm triggered whenever I'm overstimulated or exhausted, what do I need?
Sometimes, you know, the body will instinctively do what it has done in the past that might have made it feel more regulated… that could be tweet about your experience, tweet about your emotions, call a friend. And those things can work. But it could be taking an edible, it could be have a cup of tea.
Anyway, I basically put together this little station in my room for everything that I know, for a fact, makes me feel more regulated whenever I'm overwhelmed.
And I have only one place to reduce the amount of energy that it would take for me to make a decision in that exact moment of, what do I need to do to calm myself down? And so anyway, that's just one example of me deciding to do that took me about six months to probably even come to that conclusion. But now that I've made that one decision, it's like one decision that's kind of a one-and-done that it's going to work for me throughout many, hopefully, years.
And a lot of the reason why NJ's are very slow whenever it comes to making decisions is because of how much energy it takes to engage with extroverted sensing Rome, of making a decision and responding to the moment in that moment. So anyway, I have been, I had my little systems for making YouTube and all of that to where my, my challenge in life has always been about figuring out how to channel my energy properly. Because I have a lot of it, I have a lot of inspiration. And there's nothing that makes me feel more frustrated than if I feel like doing something and then there's too much inertia or resistance between the idea and it actually being a reality. And so like I said, I try and set up systems to make it easy for me to enter that flow state because so much of my life is attempting to get into a flow state, and it taking longer than I thought and then I feel like I will just blow a fuse internally. And then I don't get anything done and there's no fruits of my labor and it's like I've literally just drained my energy. And I'm trying to avoid that so much.
And one of my favorite ways of draining my energy in the past has been through relationships and through other people through prioritizing relationships at a higher value than what they should be. And one of the things I'm learning with that is that even though I personally think that on my deathbed, the relationships I have are going to be the number one most important thing in my life I also am realizing that even if I'm correct that you know relationships should be number one or can be number one, how much of a number one is it compared to the other things in your life that you need to do for you, in order to actually be the sort of friend that you want to be so um, ENFJs are not known for being the best at self-care, even though we might be a type to want to preach the importance of it to others. I saw a tweet the other day that was like my toxic to my toxic trait is I tell people to take care and yet I don't take care of something like that. And that is kind of been the story of my life to where…
I guess um, what I was going okay, what I was gonna say earlier is that all of this process of figuring out so when am I going to make YouTube videos and how often and all of that like I've been dealing with a lot of creative blockages but I realized that the reason why that is is because I have changed and so the systems in my outlets need to change because I'm learning more about myself and I'm becoming more myself and I'm taking care of myself better. So the strategies I used in the past that worked for me then um.. it almost feels like a staircase.
I, you know, I've said this before that sometimes seems like with NJ's that we grow in these quantum leaps where it feels like the staircase level things We're like, you're trying and trying, and it feels like you're plateauing. And then you hit a realization, and then it's like you're on to the next checkpoint. Like if you're in a game or something.
And it's like “checkpoint reached, you've passed to the next level.” That's often how a lot of my growth feels. And whenever I'm in that Plateau State, it feels like nothing's happening. But the plateau is because what used to work doesn't work anymore. And so I'm kind of just waiting for the thing that is going to snap into place. And during that plateau, you have to be open for something new to come to you.
So. So that kind of brings me to my point with the unknown, is that I think that collectively, we're going we're facing a lot of feelings of the unknown, for so many reasons, like the pandemic, the war. And I don't need to go into that, because I feel like there's everybody is just vaguely hinting at that of these crazy times. And I'm participating in that right now, right now. But my point with that unknown is kind of a big topic right now. But I was thinking about how a lot of the things I think about with this channel, and just in general, my obsessions about shadow work and about the shadow functions, and accepting your unconscious and all of that. It inherently brings up the unknown.
And so I wanted to talk about how embracing your shadow is kind of the same thing as embracing the unknown.
And how ignoring the shadow might feel like the safe thing to do, because it feels safe, because there are not as many unknowns coming up. But the more you're clinging to what you think you know, the more difficult it's going to be whenever the unknown eventually hits. Because if you are clinging to an idea of what you think is going to happen, your comfort zone, and the things that feel stable for you.
It's like the more energy you put into clinging on to that, then the more of a surprise, and the darker the shadow, The Unknown is going to be whenever you eventually see it.
And I've used the analogy before of like a seesaw to where ideally, the conscious and the unconscious should be going back and forth. Like a little seesaw, where I guess the goal, I think, is that the, our consciousness and our ego should not be so stubborn and so rigid that it is refusing to listen to any of the information that the unconscious might be having, might have to say, we don't need to become superhumans and perceive everything and have no shadows and darkness. But I think it's more of a matter of the attitude that you have toward those things that come up. And just a small shift in your attitude can allow you to start to take that information seriously, when it comes up. So. And part of that really is embracing the unknown. And if you think about it, the shadow or the parts you can't see the shadow is the unknown.
So, and you could see it in society is if you pretend like those shadows, Aren't there some of those shadows being racism and sexism, and the negative effects of capitalism and consumerism. A lot of these things are shadows of the American Dream that we don't want to think about. Because it undermines the positive parts of thinking about things like we're the melting pot. We're all about freedom. We're all about innovation. All of these things are perhaps the ego or the consciousness of America. And if you're only looking at those things, and you're looking at those things so much to where you aren't able to acknowledge these shadowy parts, then it's going to create this effect where the shadow bounces back, where as opposed to being able to just have a call Um, conversation about our racist past and trying to turn a new leaf and trying to heal those things. What is often happening is white supremacy culture is being more and more in denial of these things that he doesn't want to see. And if you have that mindset, where, and you know, people who have this mindset, a lot of times don't even realize that they have the mindset, that's the… that's the thing about the shadow. And that's why a lot of people talk about the importance of critically analyzing your assumptions and your stereotypes. And because you're not a bad person for having the stereotype, but you might be a bad person, if you are so in denial of these prejudices that you might have, that you're afraid to even look at them and deal with them and sort them out and make sure that you are not going to be causing any harm.
So anyway, um, the thing with that is that if you are not conflict occurs when you are dismissing any information from the shadow that your ego in the idea of yourself doesn't want to see. And it's happening on a collective scale. And it happens on a personal scale. And, you know, I have been talking about personality type theory, on this channel since 2015, I think was my first video and my ideas about personality have changed and evolved a lot. And also my self-concept has changed and evolved a lot. Because simply knowing that, I prefer that my best fit type is ENFJ.
I don't even like to call myself “an ENFJ” anymore, because it's just a pattern. It's just a pattern of how the psyche orient itself, and the 16 types are all patterns. But nobody is chained to that pattern. And in fact, we can use that pattern as a way in which to reflect on the true self that's underneath, and our true individuality or individuality that nobody can take away from us.
Knowing your type is like a stepping stone to being able to perceive all of the patterns in our life that we take on, unconsciously and socially, that are like these collective patterns that aren't bad. It's just that. So Carl Jung talked a lot about individuation, which is all about the path to the self with a capital S, the higher self, and the self is who you really are. And then, I mean, this idea has been around for so long that there's nothing really I could say about it. I just felt the need to sit on that as, who really am I who really are you? And that's a hard question to answer.
But for whatever reason, a lot of us, as humans have this pull to figure out who we really are. And knowing your personality type can give you some information. And so that's why I think it has become so popular, especially online, especially during a time in which there is so much unknown. People want to know who they are. And sometimes if you're dealing with the unknown, knowing who you are, is at the very least a constant when you are dealing with an unpredictable world and people who you don't understand.
So um I think that what can happen is that when people are wanting to understand their type, it's this fear of the unknown that can lead you to want to put a label on who you are, and figure yourself out I don't think I'm ever going to be done figuring myself out and getting to know myself. Because just as relationships are super important to life, as I mentioned before, that relationship you have with yourself is constant, constantly getting to know yourself just as you want probably to fall in love with a partner in which you are constantly unraveling and learning new things about them every day. You probably want it to feel fresh, even when you are retired, fresh and exciting no matter what it's like that relationship you have with yourself. Also should feel fresh and exciting.
Because as much as we want to figure out who we really are, so that we can maybe have something stable in this chaotic world… we are mirrors of the world, the world mirrors us, we have just as much of an unknown contained within us.
So the whole idea of embracing our personal shadows, um is inherently an act of embracing the unknown. And when that happens, things change. Now, all of this is very obvious. But to be literal, for me, my routines change, where I want to live, thinking about who I want to talk to. Because if you're in this cycle of thinking about your daily routines, what are your biggest fears? What are your goals, you're probably going to be talking to people either with similar goals, or who are doing similar things that you're doing. If you have certain hang-ups or fears, you might be having certain coping mechanisms for dealing with those. And so you get into these routines based on how you are responding to your fears, what coping mechanism mechanisms you're using, and what goals you're working toward. And so the entire fabric of your life is based on that.
So what happens when you recognize or learn something new about yourself, is that that invites the very fabric of your life to change.
One thing, as an example of this with me, is that talking to friends, is a major coping mechanism for me. And I'm not saying that it's bad to talk to friends. And I'm not saying a coping mechanism doesn't mean it's healthy. But for me, every single time, I did not feel 100%, I would reach to a friend to either distract me from the feeling to have to refocus my attention on something that is good that I am grateful for. So it's not like, it's not always like, “Oh, I'm just so like, running away from these dark feelings, and trying to ignore it so that I can talk to, you know, someone else to distract me.” That's not not true. But the experience of me doing it didn't feel like that.. it didn't feel like I was running away. It just felt like when I acknowledged that, when I acknowledged certain things, what were the responses I had, how did I respond to myself, whenever I wasn't in the place I wanted to be, and often that would be re-orienting my perspective, to be grateful for the things that I ought to be grateful for. And so I would try and, you know, enjoy life more fully. So as opposed to trying to solve a pattern. I would, you know, listen to music, and that's a perfectly fine response. Because the thing is, is that a lot of times, life is just hard, and there's nothing to solve. And there's nothing wrong with you.
But people generally have a hard time soaking up all of the joy that life has to offer. And it is a challenge to soak up joy. And so sometimes it's a perfectly fine response to if you're not feeling well just turn up the volume of the in just start soaking up more joy. I mean, that's literally what I've done in order to cope. art, music, what have you. And a lot of that a lot of my way of turning up the joy has been through other people because I just think that connection is so magical and so beautiful. And I always find myself so moved deeply whenever I am having a genuine conversation. And so anyway, but here's the thing with that is that I was finding myself reaching for my phone for connection so often throughout the day that it didn't leave enough time For me to do other things, so if I was, if I had a realization, it didn't feel good enough to just have the realization on my own, I wanted to share it in case somebody else had also had that realization or to hear if there was a different perspective that challenged mine. I didn't care if everyone agreed with me 100%. But I would compulsively reach for that connection. By throwing it out there. Sometimes I would throw it out there on Twitter, I would do it on YouTube, I would think, you know, I don't have anyone to talk to about this. And so I'm going to put it out there and have that feeling of knowing that I'm not alone in having this thought. And there's somebody else who's now you know, sharing this with me, and I get to share with them.
And you know, I've met a lot of friends online. And a lot of my closest friendships that I've had have been friends that wanted to discuss deeper topics, and wanted to have that back and forth of sharing our realizations in real-time. When the pandemic hit two, I started sending voice memos a lot. So anyway, my point with this is that I reached a point the past few months, where I've been realizing that I was throwing too much of myself in connections and not enough in creating art, or in decompressing. I barely ever watched TV. For one. I don't go to bed at a good enough time. One thing that I've been implementing in my life lately is trying to drink tea before bed, I also have an aromatherapy diffuser thing that I will turn on at about like 830 or nine, I will make myself some tea. And I will turn on the diffuser with like some lavender, and cedarwood or whatever essential oils in it. And I turn the overhead lights off and put on like a lava lamp or some crazy light or whatever. I will just whatever I feel like. And I intentionally set a mood.
Setting moods has been so so impactful for me, and I think that part of it has to do with what I was saying earlier, whenever it comes to setting up stations of like, “this is my station for music. This is my station for journaling.” For my tertiary Se. I think that like I said, it's kind of childish, it's kind of… it doesn't have as much energy to exert. So I can't just create a new moment at a moment's notice, the way that perhaps an SP type could, where from my perspective, for the sensing preference people, it feels like you're moving mountains all the time, because in order to move material is very exhausting. And I would prefer to spend more time in the intuitive realm, thinking about the possibilities of what could or couldn't happen by moving material so that whenever I do move the material, my goal is to do it right the first time doesn't always happen. Because you need that trial and error need to get familiar with what you're doing, in order for it to be less energetically taxing.
That's one thing I've realized from observing SJs I live right now with my parents, I'm saving up some money. My mom is an ESFJ and we both work from home and so kind of feels like we're little co-working buddies were I mean, just watching her routine. And talking to my ESF sister about her routine, it seems like for the SJs, they become these creatures of habits that become these creatures of habit because they're so good at listening to their bodies. It happens automatically. Like one time I asked my sister, how did you come up with your routine? Or she was talking about how every day when she wakes up, she First Things First she goes up and fills up her water bottle. And it's a reminder for her roommate, who is always snoozing to wake up because she hears her in the kitchen.
And I was like “how did you come up with that?” And she was like, “What do you mean come up with it? When I wake up, I'm thirsty because I hadn't drank any water in eight hours.”
And that right there is such a hilarious example of introverted intuition versus Introverted Sensing, in my opinion, because I'm over here thinking that in order to do anything physical, it first must start as is an idea that I came up with. But that's what's okay. That's what's so funny about it is that it doesn't have to. And I'm realizing that those routines kind of only come into play when you are listening to your body when you're relaxing, and when you're figuring out what you need, and when, and you're figuring out who you are.
So I guess to be more explicit here. Shadow Work is embracing the unknown. And for me as an ENFJ, shadow work involves becoming more conscious of the sensing and the thinking sides to me. And so to improve my sensing and my thinking, I must embrace the unknown.
Now, that is kind of a lightbulb, because I think that a lot of the time we think about intuition as the unknown. But I think that that's just semantics thing. Where it just depends on what you mean by unknown. And like, I get, I get why intuition is associated with unknown. But if you're thinking about it, in this context of someone who prefers intuition, over sensing, the ideas are what you know, what happens is not what you know. So in order to feel more stable, to feel more logical and sound, and more true to myself, it involves exploring, and there's a lot of trial and error associated here. And it throws you for a loop. So anyway, um, I'm kind of reaching a dead end here, I think. And I feel like I need to eat something. That's another thing is that I feel like I'm so used to ignoring my body signals that I'm trying to get back into it.
Okay. Yeah, this is one thing I'll point out is that um, I was thinking about for the Inferior function, for me, that would be Introverted Thinking. I was thinking about how the problem isn't that I'm illogical. The problem isn't that I don't think the problem is I can't keep track of my thinking. The problem is, I'm not conscious of my thinking. And so to improve Introverted Thinking isn't be smarter, be more concise, or be more consistent. It is, remember what you think. And so hopefully, that makes sense.
But what I was realizing with this is that the reason why it is so exhausting for me to access these lower functions, is inherently because I'm not conscious of them. So think back to what I was saying before. Why is it not exhausting for my ESFJ sister to have a routine in the morning and get all those things done? It's because she's conscious of the sensing, because her consciousness prefers sensing, she knows when she wakes up, she's thirsty. It's easier to get into an autopilot there. And know who you are in that area and have a stronger self-awareness in that area, if you're conscious of it.
So for people who prefer feeling, it's easier to go through the motions with our emotions or feelings, because we know what we're feeling. So it becomes easier to make decisions based on that, because we know what we're feeling. And if you were a thinker, you would be aware of what you're thinking, therefore, it's easier and quicker to make a decision. That's logical. And based on your thoughts. It might be harder for a thinker to make a decision based on what they want, or based on their emotions, not because they don't feel not because they're not there, but because it is going to take time to uncover what those things are. And so the act of developing your lower functions is an act of uncovering what is already there. And unraveling the truth of it.
And it reminds me of like, if something is already on the surface, you get to just enjoy it. But if you have to dig all the way down to something that is, like I'm thinking of like the roots of a plant, for some reason is the vision that came to me, if you have to dig all the way down, and you're like in the dark, it is a lot harder to complete the task or to make use of whatever tools are there. Because you can't, you can't see them.
And so anyway, my process of developing sensing and thinking has been a process of just starting to notate what those things are. A couple examples I'll share is that... For one, I went down a rabbit hole a few months ago about smart thinking, and systems thinking and note-taking systems and I watched a few YouTube videos from people that were sharing how they do their own sort of personal project management systems, and how they collect their notes. Like with tools, like notion, and obsidian, and things like that. And one of the YouTubers that I found, actually had a couple of videos about MBTI, and said that they were an INTP. And I thought it made sense for them to be an INTP, even from just watching how they were talking. Because basically, they were explaining that it's easier to come up with really sharp new ideas, if you are collecting the thoughts you have and insights you have along the way. And she did a lot of stuff where she would allow the computer to help her by putting insights she had organizing them intentionally, so that she can kind of see her insights reflected back to her with like a visual. Like a visual interpretation of the data.
So anyway, um, from watching that I realized, like, I was thinking, I have insights like this all the time. But what happens with me with my thoughts with my inferior Ti is I think it and then I forget it, which means that I don't get to use those thoughts as much. So that's where the inefficiency comes for feeling types is that it's not it's not that we aren't thinking correctly or that we're wrong or that we're dumb, it's that we don't always get to invest, and get the real value for the thoughts that we do have. Because we aren't focused on them, we are unconscious of them.
And so I was I've been trying to figure out how can I rely on technological tools to give my thinking and sensing function some support, so that my consciousness doesn't have to be manually as aware of them because that's kind of how it is, is that we're kind of disabled in our lower functions to where we can do them, it's just more energetically consuming and so relying on something like a computer could potentially help (I'm not sure how it worked for feeling I'm not sure how it work in a lot of different cases..) But relying on some sort of technology even if the technology is a cup which is technically still a technology. I'm relying on anything to help support you in your ability to use your lower functions without shaming yourself without judging yourself and instead just being very curious about, “how can I be more conscious of these things that are already are happening already are going on?”
So that's kind of an example with the thinking is that I'm… what I'm going to try and do is start I'm trying to archive like all of the videos I've done in the past all my tweets and like try and mine some mine them for key points so that I can put it into a book or something. So it's like I'm trying to actually get the getting more value out of the thoughts that I have, rather than just blasting them out and draining myself without ever getting anything back into return. And so right now I'm just very confused and in an unknown state because I'm I don't know what my routines look like that are going to exactly support me because I also don't actually know 100% what my goals are.
And with the sensing side of things, I was listening to this audiobook called The Compound Effect. And I've heard people talk about the compound effect before where it's essentially. Um, it's essentially this idea that if you do some little thing every single day that you eventually can, the results of that could compound over time. And that's something that I'm really bad at to where I'm not very consistent, especially with my sensory behaviors. Um, and this guy was basically saying that if you work in bursts, every single time you start something after having stopped doing it for a long time, that takes a lot of energy. And I think that that's something that I've struggled with.
But I still like working in bursts. So I'm not fully sure how that's gonna work out. But he was saying that, if you want to change anything in your life, whether that be how you eat your workout skills, or your.. you want to read more, or whatever it is, if you want to change anything, it starts with being aware of it. And now that's also a very obvious thing. But he was suggesting that you need to start tracking everything that you're doing. And I have resisted the idea of tracking, I hate I hate tracking. You know, some people do mood trackers, some people do sleep trackers. And it's so hard for me to get into the routine of doing those things. And anyway.
But the past two weeks, I have been attempting to track my time, for whatever reasons like I couldn't pick… I couldn't figure out what thing I wanted to track. But then I realized that really what is frustrating to me is that I'm not quite sure if I'm making the best use of my time, because all year I felt like I've had these vague goals that I'm trying to figure out. And I think I might be getting closer. But I haven't really been seeing the effects of it yet. Not even realizing now as I've been talking this whole time that I think that I'm quicker at talking than I used to be in my previous videos, and that I think that my Introverted Thinking has come a long way because I read every day now.
And I also don't, my instinct… Okay, so this is something I was gonna say earlier that I realized I didn't finish this point is that a coping mechanism for me was reaching out to people. That was like my number one thing, and I realized that I was doing it more than I actually had the time to. And so I wasn't doing things that would benefit me and my goals, a lot of that having to do with the inferior Ti. So for example, just sharing thoughts over text in a passing way, every single day versus what if I wrote a book, you know what I mean? Like, I want to create value. I don't want to be flippantly wasting my energy.'
And I'm not even saying that friends are a waste. But what I started to realize was that the amount of time I was spending texting was stressing me out and causing overstimulation because it's exhausting to rehash everything..like you lived at once, and then now you're rehashing it to five people? Just because you want them to understand you. And I… Anyway, I feel very lonely right now. Because I feel like I have not been able to keep up with message messaging people back and the way that I used to, and I feel like people are taking it personally because it's such a change from how I've acted in the past. And I feel like people probably think that I have just completely moved on to other friends or something. And that's been really hard. But part of it is that I'm finding that I'm enjoying it. reading philosophy or reading Jung more than I am talking about it these days. And I think that I'm eventually going to find a balance. But right now, it felt like a huge shadow pull.
So the compound effect, what I was saying earlier, this kind of reminded me of being more aware of my sensing is that I realized that overall, I just don't think my energy management is that great. My dad pointed this out to me, whenever I was applying for jobs at 7:30pm, on a Friday night, and I was stressing myself out. He was like, why are you applying for jobs at 7:30 on a Friday? And I'm like, well, because I want another job. And I don't often think about how the time and place is going to affect my mental state. And that I really, like I was saying earlier, I don't watch much TV, I don't really decompress. I haven't really decompressed. And so I am so one-track-minded with my goals that it's like I'm… if I'm not where I want to be, I don't give myself time to rest. And it's been a really hard pill to swallow that… in order for me to actually get where I want to be, I'm going to have to, like, just stop.
And that goes back in with the title of embracing the unknown,is I have to accept the unknown. In order to go where I haven't gone before. So I have been tracking how I'm using my time because I'm, I guess I'm trying to look at it and be like, am I texting too much? Have I gone to the other stream to where I'm not reaching out to friends enough? Am I… one thing I realized from this is that I've been wasting too much time on dating apps, when I'm not even interested.
And so that's one thing where I think sometimes we can do things automatically. Or even like our body, somehow we have learned a lesson in the past that reaching for something instinctually might be a good coping mechanism for whatever it is that we're craving in that moment. And then sometimes when our body will essentially do that, it doesn't actually give us the benefit that we are expecting or that we want. And so anyway, I'm trying to observe, you know, what are the things that are getting me caught up? Either in anxiety or in staring at the wall not sure what to do next, which is what happens to me all the time.
So anyway, I'm just trying to start by surveying, how am I spending my time? What are the uses of time that make me feel more energy energized?
And what are the uses of time that are exhausting for me? And maybe it's exhausting that I am this particular of a person that I feel such a need to scrutinize my every move? I don't, I don't f*****g know. Like, I feel like every time I've ever made a positive change in my life, it's come in an intense way. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, or why that is. But like when I started this YouTube channel, for example, what really got me going was that I had to force myself into doing a 30-day challenge. Now, a lot of people especially using those earlier videos, whenever I was on this high, almost like an extroverted sensing high of I'm just going to make a video every day and I'm not going to care what it looks like. And a lot of those earlier videos, a lot of people were typing me as ESTP or ESFP, which I think is kind of funny, because it took me three to four years of thinking about making a YouTube channel and trying to think about exactly how it would look and how it would go. Before I eventually got so frustrated with myself that I was like, just do it you f*****g idiot. And so that's kind of the games that I play with myself a lot of the time. And I'm kind of getting there right now with this channel where I sometimes I need some new energy here and I need to figure out something maybe I'll do YouTube shorts. Maybe I'll get into Tik Tok. I have never really used Tik Tok. I think when it first got big, I felt like oh, this might not be good for my mental health. I was already addicted to Twitter. I don't know if I need more Are things to make me feel overstimulated. But I have been developing a lot more self-discipline. And so we'll see, maybe I'll be able to have a positive relationship with TikTok one day.
But embracing the shadow is embracing the unknown. And part of Shadow Work is putting the unknown under a magnifying glass, even if it's uncomfortable, and part of that as examples could be, you know, tracking your time, or jotting down your thoughts.
Make it easier for your future self.
So it's like right now, for example, I don't know if I'm going to write a book, if I'm going to do a workshop. I don't know what I'm working on. But I'm basically treating it as though I have some sort of thesis I'm working on. And I'm just trying to gather the information now. So that eventually, what I know, if I want to write a book, or if I want to make a course, or whatever it is, I have that information there. Were as my patterns in the past with this YouTube channel, I have been sporadic, with my Introverted Thinking, not conscious of my Introverted Thinking to where I will have an introverted thinking thought that I want to share, make a video, never watch the video back again, forget what I said. Until next time, whenever it comes up, then I remember it again.
But whenever it comes to having to sit down and write a thorough argument, I'm going to forget, like, I'm not going to be able to craft an argument that easily if I've forgotten what my supporting details are, for that persuasive argument. Whereas if someone preferred Introverted Thinking, it's going to be a lot easier to just sit down and craft the argument because, you know, you're already thinking about and conscious of what those pieces are, that will help you with your logic. Whereas for me, it often feels very sporadic, where that is kind of how the introverted or that is how the Inferior function works, is that it hold on, I hope you guys can't hear my mom talking. But um, um, we'll wrap this up soon.
Um, so the Inferior function is almost always going to be tethered to, or it's always tethered to the unconscious. And so there's something primal about it, no matter how good you get at observing it, there's still this very uncontrollable nature to it. And so for me, it often comes in the form of Yes, I have a thought. I have a moment of clarity that, you know, hits me on the head. It wasn't because I was sitting around putting the boxes together, figuring it out, clarity, like, will arrive, like, just like, reminds me of some quote, I saw. More, it was like talking about happiness is like a butterfly. You can't like, trap it, but it will. If you are sitting softly, it can just land upon your shoulder. Truth often feels like it lands upon my shoulder. Even with this whole video, it's like I have no clue what I'm saying until I say it a lot of the time.
I feel like, I feel when something makes sense. I feel it clicking. And it's a very, very strong emotional sensation of like, click, click, click, click click anyway, it just like, it's all like just clicking. And so whenever it clicks, I get so excited that I want to share it.
And but then what what often can happen is that the clicking happened to where I might be still operating on that premise. The truth did its job, the click, the clicking has been clacked already, if you know what I mean.
So then all of a sudden, I'm going around the world operating on that new premise. But if someone were to ask me what that was, I would not be able to conjure it up on the spot, which is why feelers can seem very illogical. Because then if you're like asking me on the spot to be in a debate or to explain why I think something, not going to know why, but the clicking has already been clacked, if that makes sense.
“The clicking has been clacked already, if you know what I mean.”
So anyway, um, I am trying to, when that happens, collect those moments collected. So I think that no matter what your Inferior function is, no matter what your shadow is that you're working on, how can you get so curious about those things? And can you try and make them physical in any way. Because if you can make it physical, it's then easier for you to never forget. And it's easier for you to be conscious of it. And it just causes less stress on you, if you ever come across a moment where you have to conjure that up, and so. But then when you start doing that, that's when I think the unknown possibilities from that can be very scary, you don't know what's going to emerge, you might find out things about yourself that you didn't realize. And you could have an identity crisis.
Like for me, I am feeling more introverted than I've ever felt in my entire life, to where the more I reflect on a lot of these things, I'm seeing how having a quiet Friday night on my own reading something that I've been meaning to read, but I haven't been able to because I've been distracted from work, it feels so satisfying, and so fulfilling, to give to myself the things that I wanted to. And so but then that also that exert that takes a lot of energy, that makes it harder to then give energy somewhere else.
So the more you start putting these things under a magnifying glass, you might find that there are things about you that you didn't know.
And you might find that your vision of where you think you're going or what the future might be, could completely change. Because you're going to be noticing these components of you that have always been there. But now that you're taking them seriously, you get to plan for them. So part of that has been my self-care is that I kind of don't trust myself, to make any promises about how often I'm going to be uploading content, until I get better at understanding what I actually need to be at a physical baseline. Because I don't know how often I can exert myself until I know how much care I need in order to stay afloat. And I feel like I've reached this point where I'm sick of withholding, like peace and relaxation from myself.
And I'm, like, slowly realizing how short a day is.
And it's kind of freaking me out by how short a day is, if that makes sense, like, like, I'm finding that I love waking up at 545 Because I love when nobody's bothering me. And I get to just journal and read and play music, or watch YouTube videos, or just do whatever the f**k I want. Like before anyone has any demands on me and just like slowly sip my coffee. I love that more than anything. But in order to do that, I need to go to bed early. Which means maybe going to less concerts, which doesn't sound fun, then I have to then I start to then I have to start asking myself, How many concerts do I want to go to? When is a concert more important than waking up early. Or another thing is that if I don't bookend my days by saying at 530 “Okay, I'm done with work.” What I've been doing is, like, really make it easy for yourself. Treat yourself like an idiot in the area, but not like an idiot. But there are areas in life that are harder for you. And so give yourself the resources that you need.
Um, for me, sensing and thinking are those things that they're hard for me. So make it easy on yourself. Don't make it hard, and then shame yourself for not getting it right the first time. So I am you know, kind of babying myself in those areas to where I make so many to-do lists. I'm starting to do this thing where at 530 I'm like Okay, tomorrow first thing in the morning these are the tasks that I have to do. Because if I don't do that and have it written down for myself, then it causes so much energy because I'm constantly forgetting what I need to do.
Um and so I'm why It's like I keep at why, why would I have to keep conjuring up over and over and over again, the same task of, oh, I need to return these shoes, oh, I need to return these shoes. Oh, I'm out of milk, oh, I'm out of out of milk, oh, I'm out of milk. Like, that's how my brain feels a lot of the time is I'm just trying to relax. And then I remember, oh, there's this thing you have to do. But then it's like, oh, I don't have to do it for maybe two weeks, or I can wait or whatever. But like, um, it's not enough just have to-do lists, I'm also realizing that in order for me to actually relax after 530, I have to say, “these are all the things that have to get done tomorrow.” Or else, I won’t be relaxing, because in the back of my mind, I'll be thinking about what I forgot. And I also won't be able to go to sleep, because I'll be thinking about it, I won't be feeling satisfied or fulfilled by my day, I'll still have this itch, that there's something else that I haven't done.
And so and it's all because not conscious of the sensing, not conscious of the thinking. And so if you need a piece of paper, or a computer, to be your second brain, for your lower functions, then do it like make it easy on yourself. So anyway, I think that I'm going to end it here. But I guess my last point I wanted to make is that I'm trying to figure out this podcast, to be honest, because I think I've changed a lot. In the past two to three years, my values have changed a lot. And I'm just I'm trying to figure out what resonates with me.
I'm trying to figure out how to make things feel professional, but also casual and real. Without it seeming so daunting that I then never pick up the tools I need to communicate. And you know, I am slowly working on trying to figure out some sort of thesis statement I want to like, make more educational sort of content in general. Whether that be like, because I recognize that I'm not very great at explaining the basics of, what is personality type theory? What is the shadow work? What is all these things, but it's like, what I want to talk about is my process with it, things that I've learned, I want to add to the philosophical conversation.
And I want to start bringing in people that aren't just Jung I want to start talking about Plato and Nietzsche and like I want to just start having these conversations. But I feel like my I'm still working it out. And it's.. I'm not moving as quickly as I wish I was. But that's because I'm embracing the unknown. I'm trying to include my thinking and sensing. And because of that, there are these factors that I didn't realize were factors that are starting to come up. Because if you think about it, like with me waking up early, when would be a good time for me to work on a book, or a blog post, perhaps 545. In the morning when no one's bothering me, I've learned that it's really, really fun and easy to write, then it's not very easy to write at 2pm. So it's like, okay, if I want to write a book, is it working for me to wake up late and go to like, two concerts a week and be constantly catching up on sleep, and frustrated that I don't have enough me time. So I end up staying up until midnight. Because if I wake up and I roll out of bed and I go straight to work, and then I'm not done till 530 By the time it's 530, I'm angry, because I didn't have my day. So anyway, it's like, I'm having to be real with myself where it's like, okay, you want to do these things, but when are you going to do them? And when is the time in your schedule that makes sense for you? And are you even creating space for you to do the things that you claim to want to do?
So um, and also, I set myself up for failure all the time, by putting unrealistic expectations on myself, there was a period when I did a Patreon group where it was like, I'm going to do a workshop once a month. That was really fun for three months, and then one month came up where I had a lot going on and it was a lot harder to do. And so I am trying to figure out how to make things more sustainable. And because I'm trying to figure that out. I don't know what to tell you guys. I don't know what to tell myself. I don't know what's going to happen because there are factors that are uncovered. I'm uncovering such as you know what sleep schedule I like, these factors that I'm uncovering are all pieces of the puzzle of what the answer would be.
So that's another reason why, you know, Shadow Work is inherently embracing the unknown, because not only is it I don't know these things about me, but it's also, when you take it seriously, it ends up bleeding into your real life, your decisions end up changing because you have information at hand that you didn't have before.
So anyway, this video, thank you, if you guys made it this far, you are a real one. And I love you.
And I would love to hear. Or basically, this goes out to everyone who is dealing with the chaotic mess of the unknown right now, I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts on how it's been for you. Because it's, it's hard, it's messy, and it's very, very isolating.
I think that's another aspect of the whole Shadow Work thing. It's very isolating to do because you end up I think, exerting a lot of energy, doing things that are harder for you, it might make you feel like you have less to give others… that's how I feel right now. And I have a lot of shame about that.
Because I feel like the more I'm trying to get myself stable than the less, I feel like I can consistently be there for others, but clinging to my ego. And what I think is known over and over and over again, and might make me feel in the short term, like I'm able to be there for others consistently. But eventually, that runs dry. Because like I said before, if you're clinging to something like.. it's the act of clinging, and the act of control, that ends up causing this tsunami on the other side.
But if you get comfortable in the unknown, and you stop feeling like you have to be super consistent with your ego and your persona, like, I'm no longer the “ENFJ reliable persona”, even though I still am an ENFJ, and that's my best fit type. I'm no longer performing that persona, in the same way. And it's very, very scary.
And it's very shameful for me to be like, “Oh, my goodness, I can't believe that, you know, my sleep schedule is taking priority over, you know, me remembering to pick up the phone and call someone.” And you know, I'm very hard on myself because extroverted feeling is my Dominant function. Like, there's a good friend of mine who we've been trying to call each other for about three weeks, and they're not mad at me about it. And they also have been back and forth with me. But for whatever reason, I take those things personally, and I feel shame about them. And I'm hard on myself about them. Because I think that I should be performing this character, basically. Which any personality type is basically a caricature. It's a pattern, it's a social pattern, and it has a social value.
Aand it has an evolutionary value for our psyche to adapt, and evolve to learn in this way to where we, you know, have our preferences and then we opened the door up for more and more, but anyway, um, I was going to have a point here but I can't remember. Um, anyway, yeah, I feel I feel shamed for not doing those things. It feels like I have, oh, that's supposed to say it feels like I have less to give. But over time, I'm going to end up having more to give because I'm going to be including all of myself and not just half of myself, not just part of myself.
And I'm going to be not wasting my energy trying to hide my weaknesses and compensate for them. And I'm instead going to try and include the wealth of resources and the richness that the unconscious has…
…which I can make a whole other video on this. I can tell you so many different myths and stories behind the idea that the unconscious holds your hidden gem. And that, like what makes you special what makes you valuable, you know, um, I'm like, waiting in this unknown. And even if it like, like I said, it feels isolating for one, it feels like oh, I don't have as much to give as I used to, because I'm wasting, I'm using more energy on these things that are harder for me and take more of my energy. I could be thinking, I'm so mad at myself for not being able to keep up with the extroverted feeling that I used to, because Introverted Thinking is taking up so much time. And I feel like I can't even see if I'm getting anywhere because just doing one little thing with it can be so draining and exhausting. But the reaction, the chemical reaction that happens between both of the poles of your conscious and unconscious is creative in nature. And doing that ends up giving you a wealth of resources that you never would have had access to, to begin with. But it just takes some time getting comfortable there.
And I'm trying to get comfortable. And I feel like I'm in a weird place where every single aspect of my life is not good, not where I want to be. I'm not happy at all, really. But I also feel more mentally stable than I've ever felt in my life and also happier than I've ever felt, even though I also am not, because it feels like I don't know, just like clearing a lot of gunk and like, I'm just so f*****g proud of myself. And I know that's like weird to say, but it's like, there's a sense of fulfillment that you can get when you are working on those parts of yourself that can't possibly be described because it's an internal experience. It's like you're feeling the chemistry between your conscious and your unconscious. And any observer can't really see that necessarily. And so sometimes it takes time to be able to see the fruits of that labor. It's almost like you're becoming a lightning rod yourself internally and that eventually being able to contain that you will be able to see the effects and your actions. But anyway, yeah, it takes a while. And it's the unknown. And I'm just going to listen to my body and realize that I need a snack. So thank you so much for watching, Psyche Design and are listening if you are listening, um, have a wonderful rest of your day.
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Interested in a workshop all about dancing with your shadow functions? Join me on October 8: https://www.meetup.com/baaptsf/events/288338568/
(I realize that this is last minute. I plan to offer similar workshops at a later date. Let me know if you’d be interested in attending something like this by leaving a comment).
Watch Psyche Design Season 2 Episode 2 on YouTube:
Transcript:
Hello there. So today I'm going to be discussing Turning a Friendly Face Toward the Shadow. And what kind of lifestyle would that be if you were someone that genuinely had, or generally had, a friendly attitude toward your shadow. So this is a huge topic. And I'm actually going to be doing a workshop on a very similar topic that's called Dancing with the Shadow: Embracing Your Inner Paradox next Saturday, the eighth, I believe. I'll have a link for that below, if you're interested. And if you can't make it, I understand that this is last minute I want to be doing, I will be hosting similar workshops in the future on this subject.
So a lot of you listening to this probably are familiar with Carl Jung's concept of the shadow. This episode is not going to be really focused on defining the shadow, I might make another episode on that, but I'm going to assume that you have a general understanding whenever I say the word shadow— which is essentially all the parts of our psyche that we're not conscious of, they might make our ego uncomfortable, we might be in denial of these things, it's a pretty general term for those contents of your psyche that you cannot see.
So, um, we also want to bring up the question of — Now that you know, your personality type (assuming that you do know your personality type), now, what? How does that knowledge of your personality type shift your perception?
So, I've been circling around these sorts of topics for several years now. But what I'm, what I'm coming to... like, this main point, I guess, that I feel like I'm coming to is this idea of — what is your ego's attitude toward the shadow? And I think that ,if you are familiar with your Jungian personality type pattern, that will tell you a lot about how your ego naturally functions, and your tendencies, your preferences, but it doesn't tell you what your attitude is toward the shadow.
Um, there's a lot of talk out there within the personality type community, like... let's say you're not really you don't have as much background on Jung, but you have been studying personality type for a while. There's a lot of different ways of talking about things such as ...developing your shadow functions, or tapping into your Inferior Function. All of the all of that regarding developing the shadow functions is a portion of "shadow work" in a more general way, because your personality is only going to be your... your personality type is just going to be sort of a sliver of your psyche.
It can kind of tell you this hero's journey that your ego might be going through. Now, one of my biggest criticisms of how people discuss personality type is, I think that the ego trap that we can get into is that once we, once we know what our personality type is, then what again, like I said, — Now, what what do we do with that information? The ego can approach this in different ways. The ego can double down on its own self-understanding and be like "yes, I am that, I am an ENFJ, I am a feeling type, I am an intuitive type, I am an extrovert." The ego could be like, yes, that is me. Now, what are the shadow sides of that?
So, using myself, my ENFJ best fit type as an example. The shadow of that would be introversion. It would be sensing, it would be thinking (more specifically with my cognitive functions, Extroverted Sensing and Introverted Thinking would be the exact shadow flip side of my Dominant and Auxiliary functions). Not to mention the shadow functions that you don't prefer. All of these are parts of the shadow.
And we can take the attitude of, "I'm a feeler. Therefore, none of that thinking stuff matters to me. None of that sensing stuff matters to me." Or you can take a different attitude, where you approach the shadow with curiosity with humility, with interest with openness.
So that is I guess my number one reflection question for all of you is what is your attitude toward the shadow?
And then, I'm going to be talking pretty generally about the attitude, and how to potentially develop an attitude toward the shadow that might be more embracing it. Because the thing is, is that...
It's normal for the ego to separate things between, "that's me, and that's not me." And that can be very helpful. And, in fact, even whenever you are discovering your personality type, it can be very helpful to be able to separate me from what's not me. If you realize you're an extrovert, it might help you figure out what kind of career to go into. Knowing that I have preference for intuition and feeling, for example, can help me figure out what what sort of careers to go into, it can help me understand maybe some of my relationship patterns, people I tend to gravitate toward.
Um, so, knowledge of type really is just the first step. And how you approach that knowledge of type is absolutely crucial for how much value type actually could bring your life. And I think that we don't talk enough about the *how* we talk a lot about the *what.* We talk about the difference between ENFJ and INFJ, we talk about the difference between intuition and sensing. And Ne and Ni, (if you're into the cognitive functions) we talk a lot about these differences.
And I think that if we don't talk enough about the *how* of how we are approaching that information... if we don't intentionally talk about the how, what will happen is that our ego will naturally without even thinking, do the separation game, where we double down on our identity. And we identify with these functions that are our preferences, or we identify with this personality type. So there's nothing wrong with seeing yourself in a personality type. However, each of the 16 personality types, they are assigned essentially, they're... they're kind of like social roles that you play. They're not the Self with a capital S.
Now, in Carl Jung's idea of individuation, it's all about this journey to find the Self. And the Self is separate from our egos. And so knowing your personality type can very well be a hindrance to finding your Self. Even though it tells you a lot about how your ego works. So that's why this attitude thing in this "how" is very important. Because if we're just taking in the information of "I'm an ENFJ, these are my tendencies, these are my shortcomings, and this is how I might manage stress, and these are the things that might trip me up." If I just take in that information without reflecting on that. And without thinking about, "what my attitude is going to be toward that?" It's so easy to just fall into a trap of "okay, well, I guess that means I need to avoid all of these things that are my weaknesses... or else I'm going to make a fool of myself, or else I'm going to fail, or else I'm going to experience pain."
It's the ego.. it's naturally you know, going to try and do that. So um, you know, knowing your personality type can be very beneficial for improving your relationships with friends and family who are a different personality type than you however, you also can choose to take in that information and discriminate against different types. You might say, "I don't know... that type is quite different from me. So I do not understand, I don't care to get to know those people."
Some... it's way too common in the type community for people to say things like, "I don't get along with this sort of type, or I would never date this sort of type." And, again, it's normal for ego to have preferences... like especially when it's coming to picking a job. For example, like, like I said before, the 16 personality types, they kind of play the social roles. You might think of it as a kinda a caricature, to be to be honest. It's not your Self. It's not who you really are deep down, it might even be similar to a mask you wear in order to perform a sort of social function.
You know, the ego is there for a reason. Your preferences are there for a reason, there's likely lots of potential and talent there. So for example, for me as an ENFJ, I'm going to attempt to use my extroverted feeling and introverted intuition to give back to society in some way, because those are the functions that I naturally use. And so you know, there's got to be an outlet for your your dominant functions, I'm not saying to like, not focus on them at all. But I think that there's this, there's this wall between what we're conscious of, and what we cannot see.
And I think that, so ... Jung suggested that having this attitude toward the shadow was a moral ... was actually an ethical thing. And he described it as a moral feat to be able to embrace the shadow. So "Shadow Work" is a whole other topic that I could do another video on, but I'm sure you've heard about it, it's become quite a buzzword these days. But the whole idea of doing Shadow Work is a lifelong journey. So what I'm talking about, though, today is the first step, I'm talking about the attitude that your ego has. And this is something that we can shift, shift to just a small thing, and it can make a huge difference. And I think that regarding the attitude we had toward the shadow, there's always going to be a wall between what we're conscious of and what we're not, however, um, how thick is that wall?
And so it can go the wall between your shadow and your, your conscious and your unconscious, could be a big thick brick wall, or it could be a piece of glass, you know, very thick glass could be very thick glass, but you can potentially see a little bit through so anyway, and another thing, when it comes to the ego attitude is yes, your ego is always going to have this need for control, potentially.
But what kind of control? Is your ego a tyrant? Is your ego, trying to basically stomp out everything that is not like it? Or is your ego, a democratic ruler, a transformational leader that is listening to all of the psyche and taking responsibility for all of the psyche?
So what I think... what we really want to get to, and what a lot of my content moving forward is going to be discussing is not so much what is your personality, but how do you use your knowledge of your personality, to think about how to really be yourself and not just stop at the identity label. Because I think that a lot of us that get into personality type, we do it because we are into self discovery. We want to know more about who we are, we want to improve our relationships. And I think that giving... getting the label of ENFJ, for example. That can feel like the short-term fix, like you can get this dopamine hit of "Yes, I learned about myself. Cool." But there's more.
And I guess I'm trying to talk about this resistance. That or "how" we need to kind of lean into the resistance here. And feel into that. If we want to go a little deeper and find ourselves or be on the path to finding ourselves on the path to dancing with the shadow in a more symbiotic way. Because the thing is, is that these shadows are going to come up whether we like it or not, and it's really a matter of "How do we respond when those shadows come up?" The thicker your walls, the more tyrannical your ego. If a shadow comes up, you're going to not see it coming in, you're going to be more likely to blame and double down on your ego’s tendencies.
But if you respond with curiosity and humility and openness, when your shadows come up, you can use that as a learning opportunity.
So this can, this could apply in a personal sense or in an interpersonal sense. So for example, using type in an interpersonal sense, let's say, I, as an ENFJ, is engaged with a ISTJ in a work situation. If I was not already having this attitude of humility and curiosity about my shadows of sensing and thinking, then like, that's going to directly change how I interact with that other person. So for me interacting with an ISTJ. If I am curious and grateful and intrigued by sensing and thinking, then I am going to engage in a completely, like... I'm just going to engage in a completely different way, I'm not going to be like, shut down, and like ignoring and completely blind to any value that they would have to offer.
And so much of this is about, I think, leveraging the creative potential that already exists between people, and between yourself, and kind of leaning into that resistance and leaning into that creative tension. Because like, for two people to have different type preferences, it like really can go one of two ways. Well, the two ways are a spectrum, but you can be approach it from love and curiosity, and really gain from the other person's... like, allow the other person's strength to teach you something and allow you to integrate some more of your shadows, sothat you walk away from the relationship better off than where you started. Or, it can turn into this, this war-like battle between two tyrants of the ego. But if both of the egos attitudes toward each other, was from a more transcendent and transformational mindset, or a growth mindset, you could say, then you're going to be aware of these little differences in these little these points in which you can work together. And both.. both gain and this doesn't even have to be interpersonal, like I was saying, like, this could just be you.
Personally, let's say you're working on a project, and you find yourself you keep getting stuck in the same types of spots over and over, or maybe in your personal life, you find yourself repeating certain patterns over and over and you get triggered, and now you're in this spiral, and you don't know how to get out and you're frustrated with yourself, because you always seem to be getting into the same spirals. So no matter who it is, who's involved, even if it's just all in your own head. It's like when you trip, it's like, look at yourself, or and be like.. how? Yeah, change your attitude about what you're tripping on.
And I think if we can almost like play a role of like an investigator, whenever the shadows come up, it starts to get really fun. Now, I personally think it feels fun. I've done a lot of trial and error with this with my inferior Ti (introverted thinking) throughout the years. And in fact, for those of you who have been following me for a long time, you might have noticed that I have not been posting nearly as much as I used to post, and the funny thing about that is that I've been reading more I've been writing more I've been questioning more, my thoughts are clearer. And I'm not feeling the same urge to share that I used to. And it's actually very strange because I think that with my dominant extroverted feeling, I always had this impulse to share with everyone else and help others. And then the more curious my extroverted feeling started to get about my Introverted Thinking. The more I realized how much that information how much it had to offer and how much it can help me help others.
So, for example, using Extroverted Feeling and Introverted Thinking as an example, I've realized that getting really clear on my concepts and getting better and quicker at my word choice can help me put something into exactly the right words, that will be exactly what someone needs to hear that will actually crack one of their limiting beliefs. So, extroverted feeling just without Ti... just on its own without ti might feel like empty platitudes of you can do it, I love you, I've got you go for it. But Fe with some Ti in there can tell you specifically, like, why you can do it, or how to do it or, you know, It can help clarify things, and it can help you feel better. So, you know, my... the more I've wanted to lean into my Fe desire to want to help others, the more I realized that there's all these problems that I want to solve here, so how do I solve them?
I don't just want to be a cheerleader. So I want to actually help people. So what does that mean? Well, I'm gonna have to do some work and think about it, and I'm gonna have to, you know, figure it out and troubleshoot it with with inferior Ti.
So anyway this turning a friendly face toward the shadow, I think that it's like this first step, to just sort of open your heart up to a little bit of curiosity. And I think it's the first step toward an entire life or an entire journey of Shadow Work, integrating the shadow and all that good stuff.
And it's something you can do every day, just check in with yourself, and what is my attitude you can check in your with yourself, whenever you trip up, you can check in with yourself every time you meet a new person, or you can just do it every morning or every night just sort of be like, what's my, how's my attitude? And I think that the potential here if you want to know my opinion here, is that I think the shadow is gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. I think it's the mystery of life, I think that you find a lot of artists are inspired by the shadow.
A friend and I talked about the concept of shadowgazing, we might turn that into an episode... (We thought about turning that into a podcast, so don't take that name). But anyway, like the whole idea of shadowgazing, I've just been thinking about how it starts with, like this first step is to just loosen up a little bit, and perhaps see the value in the shadow. And be, you know, have your ego be a little bit more humble, be a little bit more curious about what it doesn't know, so that whenever the shadows come up, you could be open to it like a sponge rather than...
This is another thing is that I think sometimes. When people talk about shadow work, or even about developing their functions, they might feel like, "oh, I need to dig and dig until I find out what's wrong with me until I find the problem." And I think that it's not so much that, it's not so much that we have to dig into our shadows. I just think we need to be open because like I said, and like I've said before, Carl Jung has said is that this individuation process, it happens on its own.
The shadows will come up on its own, you don't have to do the work to go dig up the shadows. That would be your ego controlling the situation. I've been guilty of that, of being like "I need to dig up my shadows."
And it might feel like you're going somewhere. but like, I think that the in reality... The mindset is a lot like mindfulness, it's it's a lot like meditation, to where it's about letting go. And it's about just letting the shadows come and leave. Like it's the same with meditation, if you're letting thoughts kind of pass by, to where like you're just listening, you know? You're open, you're grateful. But that, this first step might be just having more of a friendly face rather than trying to stomp out the ego. Because honestly, it's so easy to stomp out the shadow with our ego because that's just what we all do. And that's what our culture encourages. So you're not a bad person. If your ego is trying to stomp out the shadows we we all do it even if there's a big part of us that is trying to appreciate the shadow more.
But I think that on the other end, like a lot of artists, they have this mindset where they're not just open to the shadow. They spend their day gazing at the mystery and the beauty of the shadow. And so I think that that is a whole other thing that honestly reminds me of worshiping the feminine principle, worshipping the goddess or Sophia, something like that, that I think has kind of been lost in our society.
I think that there's a lot I can say on this. And now I'm kind of just throwing out some half-baked ideas here is that basically, a lot of people right now are talking about, "oh, these divided times, I can't believe how divided we are, everything's so chaotic." And whenever Carl Jung came out with his theory of Psychological Types, and was talking about thinking versus feeling sensing versus intuition, he was talking about the one-sidedness of the Western mind. This is a whole other point that I want to make another video about is that he was talking about the one sidedness of the Western mind. And so one thing that I think we can forget is that a lot of his this theory, a lot of his theories, probably, you know, it is universal to all people, however, culture plays a big role. And so we can't forget that, especially putting this in the context of when it was written in like the late 1920s. And also, from a Western standpoint, Jung was pointing out how this one-sidedness is becoming a huge problem.
Now, if you remember earlier, whenever I was saying that this attitude, where we are more mindful, where we are more open toward the shadow reminds me of mindfulness, it makes me wonder if the Eastern mindset if their religions already have some of this shadow curiosity baked in a little bit more. Because if you look at the history of wars in the Western World, and how much it can feel, very divided... like even the whole idea of the Industrial Revolution, and the scientific revolution, and this rise of materialism, it makes sense to to see how potentially the Western culture has more of "this, this versus that" There, it seems to me like there's a strong divide of you're "you're either this or that."
And Carl Jung's book about Psychological Types, when he brought up the types, it's like, our tendencies toward these functions is kind of just one way that we're a little bit crazy, it's not necessarily a good thing to be a type. It's not a bad thing, it's a part of our process. It's a part of our... the way I see it, we start out whole and undifferentiated, then we differentiate ourselves, and then we go down the individuation path, and then we get closer and closer to an integrated wholeness.
But it's like, um, we start out with all this potential, and every choice we make, leads to more differentiation. Or ego is saying, "this is me, that's not me, this is me, that's not me." We're like deciding who we are as you go. But all that potential still with us to where we eventually can then attempt to bring back all of that potential back with us through embracing the shadow as we get older.
Anyway, with the "divided times" is that I feel like right now, in 2022, in America, in particular, because that's what I can speak to, is that it feels like we're getting more and more divided into two distinct camps, politically, and you we could see this in our social issues as well. And so, um, I think that will actually, the whole idea of... I definitely think that Christianity is part of the reason for this, because the whole idea of good versus evil and original sin. I think that facilitates this division. Like if we're, if we really believe that there's good and then there's evil, and as these two separate camps, then we're very much looking at things through the duality perspective.
Whereas we also could look at both of those, the duality through a transcendent perspective, like a triangle, where we're looking at both from a bird's eye view and we are attempting to integrate both together. So anyway, I'm getting a bit into other things that I kind of didn't want to get into, because I think that they would be better for their own dedicated video. But, I guess my point is, is that one of the reasons why I think that this is important is because I think that this that, you know, Jung suggested that our attitude toward the shadow was very important in that it was, in fact a moral feat to attempt to integrate your shadow.
And I think that while fully integrating the shadow might feel like a far off pipe dream... (maybe similar to ideas such as enlightenment, or even ego death). Well, that might feel like a far out pipe dream. What you can do today, right now is be a little bit more humble and a little bit more curious about your shadows. And knowing your type doesn't only show you your preferences, it also shows you your shadows. And so you can be aware when you're interacting in the world, keep your ears perked for the things that potentially you would have just glossed over and fought found not important, you can start to be like intrigued a little bit by it.
And, um, I think that we're in the midst of a cultural shift Cultural Revolution, and I have no clue what is going to happen. To me, it feels like a "things must get worse before they get better" sort of deal, which I don't really like. However, this brings me to a whole other topic of that I've been thinking a lot about self-development as being a reflection of social justice as well, and how a lot of this rise of self-development these days has felt a little bit narcissistic, a little bit like, "how do I improve my career? How do I have it all? How do I hold up... Or, how do I make sure that I measure up to all of these impossible Western standards?" But if we think about the division that we are facing in our culture, and if we want to come together and have there be less conflict, what sort of attitude would the human race have to have in order to do that? And it doesn't mean that you let go of something you believe in or something that's your preference? Absolutely not. Because some tendencies or some opinions are more integrated than others. And so some things aren't even a true binary... some things are like a radical ego, comparing itself to a more well-rounded view. So even whenever I say, when I talk about the left and the right politically, I'm not even saying that they're on equal footing. I'm, I absolutely don't think that but um, anyway, I'm... what helps me is thinking about it, as "I'm in charge of my mindset, I'm in charge of what I how I respond to." But, I'm not in charge.
So this is a this is another thing of your ego needs to know that it is not as "in charge" as it thinks it is. But what are you in charge of? So, kind of allowing the ego to play its role and sit back and watch a little bit and observe and enjoy the shadow, my ego is not in control of other people, of everything that happens to me. But it can control how it responds whenever a shadow comes up, or when a lesson comes up in, we can control how we choose to engage in our attitude toward things if we're curious and loving, and all that sort of stuff (more on Love in another episode).
But I would argue that shifting our attitude about the shadow is going to be a very crucial shift in order to support this cultural revolution that I think we're kind of in the midst of, but I think that it's probably going to take a decade or two (if not more) for us to like actually get there. I feel like a lot of people are starting to have these discussions lately. And I guess I want to open the door to this discussion. What would it look like to dance with the shadow? What would it look like to embrace it and its role there? (Which now as I'm saying this I'm realizing it kind of just reminds me of... it feels feminist in a sense. Because I feel like...)
A lot of times, you know, the moon in astrology has been associated with the subconscious. A lot of feminine Tarot archetypes are associated with the unconscious and the shadow. And I do feel like there's something very receptive here. And very, like almost feminine energy spirituality here that to where this decision to embrace the shadow in and of itself is a way of balancing the polarities between light and shadow. So, because you know, if there's light in their shadow, and if there's a shadow, there's light, the to feed into each other. And I would argue that our western culture has been very focused on the light. And right now we're facing a lot of black and white thinking a lot of division where we need some more gray area here. And I do think it reminds me of a lot of the Eastern mindset of mindfulness, and letting go and being a little bit more receptive to things and a little bit more perceptive.
So, and I think that that's an attitude that's needed, in particular right now. And I think that it is something that we need to talk about when it comes to our personality type. Because knowing your personality type can be a catalyst for finding the self and for individuation, and improving your relationship with your shadow. But only if you're asking yourself about that attitude.
And you're asking yourself, how. "How am I using my personality type?" So, I think that there's a lot of beauty to be seen in the shadow. And like I said, I think a lot of artists, what they get their work from gazing at the shadow, and from marveling at its beauty.
So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know if you've had any questions or if there's any topic that really struck you. The more comments I get, it's going to really help me feel like we're having a back and forth as a podcast and will help me have ideas as well so I could post more regularly. So thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Transcription:
Hello, my name is Meghan LeVota, and you are listening to the Psyche Design podcast. This is the first episode of season two. And, I'm not fully sure everything that I'm going to talk about in this episode. But for myself, I'm treating it as almost like a personal manifesto of "How I Intend to Talk About Personality Type Moving Forward," and just some general ideas to set the stage.
So, I'm calling this episode a Call For Complexity. Because that is partially what I'm calling for, is a way in which to talk about Carl Jung's theory of Psychological Types — as well as the 16-type model that was popularized by the MBTI (Myers and Briggs), and all of the other systems that have followed.
And I guess what I want to bring up right off the bat, is that Carl Jung himself was pretty long-winded and convoluted, one could say. And in the book, Psychological Types, he talks a lot about the problem of opposites, and how opposites interact with one another, and what to do about it, and what problems that gives society dealing with those opposites. And then at the end of the book, he goes into the eight cognitive functions, which I'm not going to go into what those are just yet. So if you're new to personality type theory, and you want to know what these functions are, you might want to check out another episode.
But for those of us who have been in this personality bubble for a while, basically, the way I see it is, Carl Jung talked about the psyche, in quite a complex way, too. And, you know, interestingly enough, he wanted his theory of Psychological Types to be something that the layperson can pick up and use. However, in the way in which he explained things, it was not very easy for a lay person to pick up and use, what did people do, they jumped right to the section about the categories. And they just read about the categories and skipped over the beginning part, I've been guilty. I'm guilty of this literally when it comes to reading that reading his book. And I think that, you know, based on how the ego works, according to Jung and psychology, this shouldn't be that surprising that our ego is automatically going to go toward the information in which we, our ego feels like we can use something from it. Whether this is our self-concept, we're going to understand ourselves better. Or other people, maybe we want to get along with other people better. And so even though Carl Jung had hopes that his book Psychological Types would be able to be used for the layperson to be able to figure out how they are dealing with their problem of opposites, in instead went over a lot of people's heads. And I'd like to argue that it's going over our heads right now. I'm not even trying to claim that it hasn't gone over mine, I just want to bring out right off the bat, that the guy is pretty dense when he writes and not all of us have read all of it through.
And I'm not even a Jungian purist here. However, I am someone that philosophically aligns more with Jung than Freud. And I tend to agree with his philosophy on the psyche in the shadow a little bit more so than, like mainstream modern psychology. And so, whenever the Myers Briggs came to be, it was inspired by Psychological Types. And it went with the categories that Carl Jung proposed with the eight cognitive functions and it uses his theory about how we have a dominant and we also have an auxiliary function and then we have an inferior function that is opposite to our Dominant function. The MBTI was able to put those categories and use his theory and turn it into 16 types Next. And there are there are some debates and whether or not Carl Jung agreed with the MBTI. And there's some debate and whether or not the two systems even can work well together. But for most of us in 2022, for learning about personality, we're probably first learning about it through the lens of the 16 types. And then if you get more interested in the background, then you go back and look at some of the depths and the complexity behind it.
And I guess what I want to bring up is that. So the MBTI definitely succeeded at reaching the layperson, way more than Carl Jung did. I think we can agree on that. However, right now, in 2022, if you're familiar with the site, 16 Personalities — that is a very popular online quiz that a lot of people will go and take to figure out what their personality type is. While the 16 Personalities is not actually Jungian-based typology theory — it's actually trait-based, it has nothing to do with the MBTI. And so it's a fundamentally different theory, than the, you know, the 16 Jungian types, the type patterns. And so you also could argue that 16 Personalities did a better job at reaching the layperson. But at what cost?
Well, I'm not even saying that there's anything wrong with it, necessarily. The cost, some could argue that the cost that there might be, you know, that it's not factually as true or holistic, maybe they see some ethical problems with a pressure to stereotype things or put people in boxes. Um, but it's not the way that Carl Jung described it, it's a completely different theory. But it's ... almost using his credit, credibility, or authority in order to, you know, make this site. And I'm not arguing that the MBTI did this with Jung, in theory. But I am saying that just because something is easier for a layperson to, in general, understand... and just because you're able to describe it in a more simple and engaging way, doesn't necessarily mean that it's more correct.
And, in my opinion, the 16 Personalities quiz, it tries to mix... Well, this part isn't an opinion it's true. It's true that it uses the Big 5, which is a pretty popular trait-based model in psychology. It kind of uses that, but then uses some of the same verbiage that the MBTI uses such as thinking and feeling. Ya know, I'm pretty sure that the MBTI has said before that they regret not trademarking, their names like ENFJ, INFJ, and whatnot, because they're upset for the end, because basically, the 16 Personalities is using their credibility of those keywords.
And the type code, however, like, I, personally am happy that the Myers Briggs did not trademark those names, because, you know, even Carl Jung himself, he was talking about things like thinking versus feeling, sensing versus intuition which these have existed as these concepts had. These concepts have existed as dichotomies, even before Carl Jung, he just identified them. And so I think it would be kind of silly for someone to trademark the idea that there's a dichotomy because anyone can perceive them. It would be like trademarking the idea of light versus dark. I mean, that's just one way of looking at it. And so I feel like everybody should have the right to talk about things such as feeling versus thinking, introversion versus extraversion, and any other dichotomy that might exist in the world. And as reflected in our psyches.
Um, but I think that there has been almost like a feeling that in order to get this across, we have to be as simple as possible, or else people won't understand. So now I want to critique the idea of talking to a layperson in general. Because who even is a layperson? What does that mean?
I guess you could say it means somebody that's not super into psychology. But think about where we're at right now. In 2022. With a computer at our fingertips, no matter where we go, most of the time, for most of us, we can Google anything we'd like. A lot of us become experts in things that we don't officially have a degree in.
And we're exposed to so much information to where I'm a lay person in the 1920s is quite different than a layperson in the 2020s.
Because what, when you also think of layperson, maybe you're thinking what would be like a commoners job, or like the most normal occupation? Well, at least in America, a lot of our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. So the layperson in America is working in an information economy, in a knowledge economy. We're even things like customer service that involve working with people. And so a layperson when in Jung's time, would have more probably been someone that had a job in which they were told what to do. And they didn't have to think much more beyond that.
However, I don't think that a lot of us in 2022 have the privilege to be able to do that. So bringing me back to all this, I've been sitting with the question of, maybe there's a reason why Carl Jung introduced the eight cognitive functions in the way in which he did and in the order in which he did, it seems like a lot of us and the MBTI included, they read, you know, Psychological Types and thought, you know, this is really interesting. However, you're losing me a bit Jung, like you're talking so much about all the stuff that I don't care about, get me to the categories. And so that's basically what a lot of these type models have done, is want to quickly get to why someone would want to hear about what they're saying, and explain it in a way where it's quick and snappy, and you're able to add value quickly.
And we see the sentiment, this whole sentiment of trying to cut through the fat, and get right to like this point, that might be convincing for someone. We see this all the time in sales, and in marketing. And I think that with so much information in 2022 that we are all sifting through… I know a lot of us work from home, I work from home, I feel like I'm sitting behind a computer a lot. I read recently the other day, that apparently the average person sees, could see up to 10,000 advertisements per day, in 2022. So, and in contrast, in the 70s, that number was more like 500 to 1000. So there's a lot that we're trying to sort through, there's a lot of information that we're juggling all at once. We aren't like living on a farm and working in a factory doing the same thing over and over and over. And so imagine what that's done to our psyches. We aren't a lot of us are not just sitting and doing the same thing over and over and over.
So I ask what do you think that a layperson is able to understand? And how much do you think that we have to dumb it down? Because I think that a lot of people are trying to make it seem simple and easy. So that people get it and understand and it's almost like you want to hook them so that they can see the value and then, later on, explain the depths of it. However, I think that when we do this, people have a lot of unlearning to do. I had a lot of unlearning to do. Because in order for the system of the eight cognitive functions to actually work, the implication is that there are these Jungian principles of how the psyche works, that are the foundation for how these eight cognitive functions even work.
So, I want to shine a light on the fact that there are these underlying principles of Jung in psychology, what even is a psyche? How does the shadow even work? How does the consciousness or how do the conscious and unconscious parts of our brain interact? And how does projection work? What is the individuation process? What is the transcendent function, all of these things, in my opinion, are integral to understanding how the eight cognitive functions even work. And I know that it's common understanding it among type practitioners, too, it seems like a lot of the priority is to help people get to their best fit type now, and then you can explain all of the parts behind that.
So for example, you might want to help someone get to the fact that they are an ENFJ personality type, because then they can use that model now, to understand themselves better and understand others better. However, the system of the 16 types, has a different purpose than Carl Jung's theory of Psychological Types, in which he introduces the eight cognitive functions, which are essentially like the building blocks of the psyche, if you were to envision your psyche and split it into groups and split it into eight. It's all based on the four elements that everything in the universe is based on. It's the four elements in and out, it's the formula for elements in your inner world, and four elements in the outer world.
And so I've said this in other videos, but I really, really want to underscore the fact that I'm, well, I'd argue that the psyche of one individual is a microcosm of the entire universe. And so you have to realize how infinite of a potential that is. And if you were to look at the microcosm of all that is, and divide it by eight, do you understand the depths of which each one of these psyches or each one of these functions is capable of.
I think that if we are putting it into little keywords, we're trying to narrow it down and water it down and make it easy, so that other people understand — not only are we assuming that others aren't intelligent enough to grasp something that in my opinion, all of this is experiential knowledge. We're all human. If you lived it, if you can feel it, it's gonna make sense.
Like, you know, don't assume that we don't have or the delay person, whatever doesn't have the capacity to understand something that their brain is literally doing. So I, so this is just my opinion, I am kind of sensitive to the fact I noticed this, like in politics and whatnot, where people are almost talking to the masses, as though they're a separate group or separate from them. And it's like, we're all mass, we're all the masses. You know, like, Who do you think you are? Um, so I guess I want to challenge that idea, because, but I understand it's scary.
And I'll tell you why it's scary. It's because we are afraid of the transformation that occurs, in which groups of people that operate differently than one another mix together. That would be mixing, feeling and thinking, mixing sensing and intuiting, mixing intuition — I already said that, I'm mixing introversion and extraversion.
You know, when we mix these polarities together, you're going to expect some chaos. And so of course, the masses are chaotic, but it's not because they're stupid and you're not. It's because the totality of all of us together is extremely chaotic. And you know what, guess what, your psyche is extremely chaotic as well.
And so, when I say Call for Complexity, I am making a call for each of us as individuals to acknowledge and own the complexity of our inner conflict and our inner paradox and our dichotomies that exist within us. Because I'm not just a feeler, I'm not just intuitive. These are labels that we can use in order to better understand our social role, better understand where we've been and where we want to go. But it's extremely helpful, in my opinion, to recognize that while our ego has a personality type pattern that plays out throughout your ego’s development, we're that that whole journey of, you know, going from your Dominant function and learning to lead on your auxiliary and whatnot. That's a journey your ego is going through and will continue to go through, however, who you are really yourself, which in Carl Jung's psychology, he talks about the individuation process in which we are going on a journey to unravel the self with each decision with each step.
And through that, we are allowing the shadow to come to light, which means that we're eliminating the resistance between there in that partition between the consciousness and the unconscious.
If we want to find who we really are, if we want to identify with ourselves, and not just our ego, and not just our persona, we have to identify with that journey, we have to identify with that. The you that is going through this whole tunnel, this whole process to which you feel the wobble within one side and the other.
So anyway, so I have been going back to why did Carl Jung talk for that long about the problem of opposites before he went into I did identifying the eight cognitive functions. And I think it's because this whole idea of the Western mind being one-sided, and the impact that causes in society. Carl Jung talks about that a lot. For example, he talks about Romeo and Juliet being an example of the two families and how they have different conscious preferences. And they're projecting on the other through their shadow. And they represent these opposites. And then Romeo and Juliet themselves, their decision to come together through love. It causes chaos between these opposites. And a transformation occurs.
Why did he talk about that? Instead of explaining the difference between an INFJ and an INTJ? Well, you could argue that the MBTI developed and added on to things that Carl Jung didn't know. And that's definitely the case, I think that there has been a lot of development within understanding the 16th type map type patterns in 100 years, not just with the MBTI, but with people such as John Beebe, who was a union analyst who developed an eight function model. And he identified the different complexes that might be attached to each of our functions. So for example, not just thinking about it as this Dominant function, he also talks about how we might have a hero complex attached to that function in the way in which we use it, whereas the auxiliary function will have a supportive parent complex. And, you know, he goes down the line in which you see how the shadow and the light within your personality work together. And so how do they work together? That's what I'm calling our inner paradox.
So, okay, back back, though, to what I was saying is that yes, there's been development, and we've learned things now that Carl Jung did no because the times have changed. There's been development in psychology. So there's again, there's a lot he doesn't know. However, I asked myself if was there a reason why he went into that for so long? And also, is there a reason in which he explained it as through the eight functions, rather than coming up with almost like a persona, in order to go with it?
And I keep coming back to the idea that he is really framing the value here, by explaining how the fragmented and divided western mind is clinging to one-sidedness. And also the unconscious effects of that. And type, recognizing which cognitive function is being clung to, in a one-sided way, is very useful if you are trying to solve the problem of an extremely divided society.
And so, to me, especially after everything we've gone through in the past couple of years with the pandemic, to me, how divided our society is is of number one importance to me, because the MBTI, developed a system to your type is essentially like a social role that you can put on in order to get by, and it's not bad. It's just not all that there is to you. And I think we all know that I think that people who really love the 16 types system, which I do as well, I'm not saying I'm not going to talk about ENFJ, or any of that. I think we all realize that. There's more to it than this. And you know, and when we're talking about what type is one of the biggest barriers we get from people is, “I don't know, I feel like I'm both or, you know, I was this but then I changed.” And maybe instead of launching into, “Oh, no, you need to take a good test. Maybe you're this, maybe you're that”... Maybe, instead we need to recognize that. “Yeah, you did change. And you are both.” And I think that the way in which Carl Jung introduced it by initially pointing out the problem in which, “oOh, everybody is really one-sided,” it gets us to start thinking, “Oh, how am I one-sided? How am I suppressing a certain side of myself?” It starts to get you thinking in that way.
And then when you explain the eight cognitive functions, is explaining the map of the psyche in which we all travel. So, yes, that might be confusing. It's more confusing than taking an assessment, and figuring out which type of personality pattern you might have. Or maybe it is, I don't know. But I think in the long run, I think that it might actually be easier… it might actually be easier for people to grasp if we just leaned into the fact that it's kind of complex. Because it's not even that it's that complex, it's just that so much of thinking about how consciousness and unconsciousness works …there are a lot of paradoxes here. It's like, I'm an introvert, and I'm an extrovert. I'm a thinker, and I'm a feeler.
One thing that this makes me think of is that I have been taking improv classes recently and one of the principles of improv is the idea of “Yes, and,” and in order to create a scene with somebody new, you have to be open to whatever they are giving you. And you have to say “yes, and” tack onto it.
And that whole principle of “yes, and” reminds me a lot of the transcendent function in which Carl Jung talks about how when we hold tension between the two opposites, a third thing can emerge. When we are able to recognize the opposites within us, rather than cling to our one-sidedness, that's where creative energy comes from. That's where we find ourselves. And that all comes through owning our inner paradox.
And so my thing is, is that everybody, I don't care if you know what your type is, I don't care if you even like talking about type. Everybody can get some value from thinking about, “How am I holding the tension between introversion and extraversion, feeling and thinking, sensing and intuiting?” Everybody can get value from that. And knowing what type you are just tells you which side you might be leaning on to a little bit more.
So yeah, I've just been thinking a lot about why, why did he explain it in the order in which he did? Because I think that he had a reason, even if he didn't explain it very well. Because he explained it in that order. And then he became very frustrated when people didn't understand it. And he also became frustrated with the simplifications because he felt that they were missing something. And I'm I think that not everybody is going to want to get into the theory of all this. And there can be some value in like a workplace setting or like a team setting, just to use an assessment, and figure out, you know, what our preferences are, like, oh, I have a preference for feeling versus thinking, that can be very useful in team environments. And it can be practical. And so I totally understand why the MBTI and other models have framed it in this way, in which they are explaining, typically, the logic is they're going to explain to you, this is what the tool does, it helps you understand yourself and others, it helps you understand your decisions, as well as how you process things. And that can be very helpful. But if we are wanting to talk about it in a dynamic way in which we are feeling into the sort of spiral movements that we go through, and um I don't know lately, I'm just really interested in tapping into the whole idea of like, your core creative instinct. And also like the chaos of that, because holding tension or holding opposites.
Intention is very chaotic. It's very creative. But it also makes you feel alive. And so how do you feel alive? Well, no matter what type you are, you probably need to go easy on your lower functions a little bit, it doesn't mean you need to, you know, all of a sudden abandon what your preferences are, and jump to something else, you got to ease into it a little bit, you got to make it feel like a dance. And if it's not feeling like a dance, oftentimes, it'll feel like ginormous tidal waves, or it'll feel like you're on this pendulum, where you're clinging to one side, you're afraid to go swinging somewhere else.
And it's like, the more pressure you put on one side on the conscious realm, then the more your shadow is going to bounce back to bite and come back to bite you. And so if we don't want to be going through these things, these insane, like reactive and out of control, seesaw-like feeling internally, we got to hold some sort of space for both.
And so I think that if we talk about type, from this sort of like chaotic core creative instincts, the Self that's on its journey back to ourselves. I think that it might actually make more sense, even if it sounds more complex. Because like I said, I mean, I think that it's the kind thing to do to speak to an audience that you believe is at your level of intelligence, rather than speaking down. I believe it's the kind thing to do to not treat the masses as though they're somehow separate from you. I also think that humanity has gone through a lot of change in the last 100 years, to where we are all having to deal with so much complexity all the time, to the point where it's making our brains feel very fried. And so I think that embracing the complexity of the theory and also applying it to social issues, or cultural things, it might feel kind of nebulous, but like I said, I think it's an experiential form of knowledge. To where if you play around with it, and you tune into how your inner paradoxes are working, I think that anyone can catch on.
Because it's describing the ways in which our psyche works and we all have a psyche, right?
So, I would like to start talking about individuation more broadly and the psyche more broadly. And then talking about type in relation to that. How does type work as a tool for individuation? There are other tools for this as well. You can identify archetypes. Jean Shinoda Bolen has a system of archetypes related to the Greek gods and goddesses that I have been into. The archetypes are, are more instinctual, whereas the functions are more mental. And then there's also astrology. Now, I know this might be unpopular for a lot of people who are maybe MBTI type practitioners and psychologists because astrology is not very scientific. However, Jung did use astrology. Jung used astrology in order to explain what synchronicity even was. And I would argue that astrology is a tool for individuation, just as typology is a tool for individuation, and there are different tools. And I would argue that typology is a bit more down-to-earth, which is why it's easier to test and measure. And it is, psychology is a science, it can be depending on how you do it. And I would argue that synchronicity, synchronicities, when you run into them, those are the signposts that show you that you're on this path of individuation that things are getting easier that you are releasing the resistance between your two polarities.
And the last thing I'll say on this, when I say call for complexity, I spoke in February at the type conference for the Association for Psychological Type International (APTi), and I titled that talk The Call for Complexity: Typology Online. And for that talk, I was talking all about the state of personality typology online, how people were using YouTube, how people were using online groups, and things like Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. And most of my audience for that was some of the older generations, and I kind of was just sort of trying to come in and bridge the gap, and speak on behalf of I guess, a millennial that has been in typology communities online for about 10 years now. And I also wanted to point out, like, I, you know, Gen Z's here, Gen Z has come as come in, and there are different social norms for the Internet, then there were whenever I got started, and I argued, and I can go into this in another episode that being on the internet, it's really the wild wild west. And it, I think, can trigger our shadows more than perhaps real life to some extent, um, in the sense that I think that it's easier to find yourself up against an opposite. Whereas if you say something online, you're probably going to find someone who absolutely hates what you said, and is representing the exact opposite view. Whereas in real life, you're probably more likely to stick to people you know, or stick to like-minded cultures, religions, whatnot, but the internet, you can talk to anyone.
And so I think that the web has influenced those of us who are digital natives, to where our minds work a little bit differently. I'm not sure if it's better, or if it's worse, we don't even really know yet. But I think that it's fair to argue that the internet is affecting our minds and thus our psyches. And you know, there are so many possibilities on the internet. And I think that our the younger generations know that there are more possibilities than maybe the older generations did. And we're conceptualizing things differently. And I personally believe that it's a lot harder to go through life thinking just from your own preferred function standpoint, without bumping into, at least once, somebody who thinks that you're absolutely insane for naturally thinking what you think in the way that you think.
You're going to bump into those people that challenge you, and then when you're challenged, you're going to have to deal with that tidal wave.
And so what I told APTi at that talk to the older generations, is that I think that we need to recognize that the younger generations are thinking about type in a pretty complex way. And a lot of us have figured it out on our own, by seeking out information on our own and piecing it together on our own. And so I think that there has been this bias from older generations thinking that if you want to reach millennials, or Gen Z, you have to be very simple and quick, because you know, we're the generation that is used to Amazon, Amazon Prime, and just like getting everything within a moment's notice. I think that you don't have to be fast, in order to get our attention, I think that you have to be, say something novel. And also don't disrespect our intelligence. So that's my theory is that I think that the younger generation are looking for something meaningful, and they want to have a meaningful conversation, and that we shouldn't be afraid to talk about complexity. Because I think that if you give all the information out there, rather than trying to segment it, it's going to make it a lot easier for people to come to holistic understandings on their own.
Because also, that's another thing, I'm not here to teach. I'm here to share some of my experiential knowledge and have a conversation together.
So I think that that's good for today. Um, I am going to, at the very least do an episode once a month, and potentially more than that, sometimes I'll be on camera, sometimes I won't. I do want to go deeper into explaining like, what the functions are, in my words, and whatnot. But really, at the end of the day, knowing about the eight cognitive functions, has absolutely transformed my life in ways that I don't even know how to explain.. and so I think that’s what I want to explore on this podcast is how, how even knowing about the dichotomies and holding space for them, and that whole way of thinking, how has that led to transformations in my life? And I believe it's because it's activated the transcendent function, which yeah … and I think that I feel completely done with trying to come up with definitions and categories. And systems. I'm not saying that in like a one-sided way in which I'm afraid of using my thinking functions. Because I will try and be specific, and I will try and use models if I absolutely need to, to explain. But I'm going to try and let myself have an ENFJ preference, and I'm going to try and just let myself use extroverted feeling here and do what I do best. I'm going to try and give myself permission to yeah, um, it's like, I want to talk about the transformative power of this tool more so than I want to be splitting hairs about what's what, and defining things, I want to get to the part in which we're actually applying this to things that are really, really meaningful, that can really change an individual's life.
And I believe when I say call for complexity, I want to end this by saying that I think the problems that humanity faces right now, socially, are bigger than ones we've ever faced before. This is a very pivotal time. And, you know, there's been a lot of times in which we've said that, and, yeah, that's okay. Because this is a new time. You know, we're, we've never dealt with this before. We've, we've dealt with monumental, unprecedented times before. But we're at another one, we're at another one of those points.
And I believe that each of us as individuals need to be the sort of individuals that can manage our own inner complexities without lashing out without getting reactive, without projecting if we want to solve these problems that we face.
Because think about how things are politically right now. People aren't even hearing each other. Like we aren't even having conversations because people are doubling down on their side, that isn't being heard by the other side. And we need to hear all of the sides. We need to become a person that can hear all of the sides and isn't afraid of our own complexity, if we want to face this sense of overwhelm and this information in the chaotic world that we live in right now. And so the way that I talked about time is going to reflect that. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, have a wonderful day.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
If you're new to type, you may be wondering: which test should I take?
In this episode of Psyche Design, I'm joined by type experts Sterling Bates and Katherine Hirsch to discuss some of the problems with online personality tests and tips for finding your best fit type. There are many ways to discover your type— but there are some things to keep in mind to help you get the most value out of this tool.
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
Like my content? Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contacto
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Isn't personality type just astrology for business people? Let's talk about the difference between astrology and type.
There's a good chance you've heard this one before. A lot of people like to compare personality type and astrology, but as someone interested in both I can tell you: the two are very different.
A lot of psychologists interested in type want to stay away from comparing type to astrology, understandably so. From a scientific perspective, there is actual research (including some neuroscience) that can improve the existence of 16 type patterns. Because type is harder to measure than other aspects of psychology, it is considered fuzzy. Comparing it to something even fuzzier (like astrology, which is nearly 100% rejected by science) is not a great way to get people to believe that there is validity to the theory of personality types.
A lot of astrologers are skeptical of personality type because they see it as too corporate, or they perceive it to lack nuance. They believe that their natal chart can already describe what personality type is getting at, but better. This is not the case, as Jungian personality type offers a more specific look at your cognitive wiring and your psyche's tendencies. Type is more grounded in something you can observe and use regarding how you operate. Astrology on the other hand, is much more than just personality or your mental functions. Your natal chart expands to cover other people in your life, situations you might face, karma, destiny, and other highly conceptual topics that are difficult to pin down. It's also worth knowing that psychologist Carl Jung was inspired by astrology when he originally discovered the theory of psychological types.
I believe that both of these tools have very different purposes and can aid your self-discovery journey in different ways. It's unfair to dismiss the validity of the theory of psychological type by comparing it to astrology, as the tools are not the same. For those who do believe in astrology, it's also worth knowing that type can offer something that astrology cannot explain.
Scientific studies on personality type (database): https://www.capt.org/MILO/
Center for Applications of Psychological Type: https://www.capt.org/
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
Like my content? Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me. View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Your cognitive type pattern will tell you a lot about how you see the world and how you make decisions. But you are much more than that. In this episode, I discuss some of the factors that might influence how you express your personality and show up in the world.
Reminder, Jungian psychological type is not a trait-based or behavioral system. Since we are talking about your core cognitive lens, these patterns exist in the mind and describe what motivates our behavior — not the behavior itself.
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
Like my content? Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me. View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In this episode, I'm going to talk a bit about the state of intuition and feeling in today's culture — and some of its problematic manifestations.
In my opinion, most of western society has suffered from sensing and thinking "one-sidedness" for many years. Right now, a lot of the divisiveness we are seeing in culture is due to backlash from feeling and intuition. While feeling and intuition are beginning to take up more space, things are wobbling a bit. Some people are doubling down on feeling and intuition in an egoic way, to match the energy of egoic thinking and feeling that are clinging to their one-sided power.
While these function polarities don't explain the full picture of what is going on, I think that it can be a helpful frame of reference for understanding so we can aim to restore balance. My goal is to move toward a world that makes space for all function attitudes — without the need to dismiss anyone's reality.
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me.
View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9 DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/ Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In this episode, I want to talk about the judging functions — specifically, the difference between how introverted and extroverted judging functions operate. While feeling and thinking are both ways of assessing the information you pick up on and coming to a conclusion, introverted judging (Fi and Ti) is going to approach that decision through the subjective viewpoint; considering all internal factors. Extroverted judging (Fe and Ti) is approaching the problem more so through the objective, considering the external objects.
You can think of Fi and Ti as how we purify and discern our unique identity, whereas Fe and Te are focused on aligning their decisions with the universal laws of how things operate in our shared reality. No matter what your personality type pattern is, we all struggle with this tension between considering internal vs external factors when problem-solving.
I wanted to discuss this because I have been spending a lot of time working with shadow Fi and Ti lately and I am amazed by how grounding and deep this kind of consciousness can go. I wanted to reflect on how this tension between my judging processes has impacted my life.
The next discussion group will be July 22! Support Psyche Design on Patreon (discussion group + Q&A): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me. View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project?
Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Without conscious awareness, we are all in danger of becoming a caricature of ourselves. The 16 types are the cast of characters the ego could latch onto. You are more than that.
In this episode, I discuss the power of projection. Projection is an automatic mechanism of the psyche that we all participate in. This is when the unconscious contents of our psyche (what we cannot see in ourselves) are seen through other people/objects. Common examples of projection are seen in personal and collective quarrels. As Carl Jung explains, "All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings, and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects."
It is important to keep in mind that there is a reason for this process: the unconscious always seeks expression. This is the same motivation that fuels our individuation process. With that in mind, how can we become more conscious of our projections? Is it possible to move with the creative energy of conflict and allow it to transform our conscious perspective?
The next discussion group will be July 22! Support Psyche Design on Patreon (discussion group + Q&A): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
APTI keynote event series signup: https://www.aptinternational.org/
Projection and Personality Development via the Eight-Function Model by Carol Shumate: https://www.amazon.com/Projection-Personality-Development-Eight-Function-Model/dp/0367341387
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me. View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance. For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In this episode, I talk about a bunch of different things. Mainly, I am discussing the process of transformation in the psyche that we all go through while using myself as an example. I reflect on the past, look to the future, and share some lessons I've learned about integrating the shadow along the way. I talk quite a bit about the experience of inferior introverted thinking, so if you're interested in learning more about that, take a listen! Also, the next discussion group meets on June 24 (link below).
Type + Academia Symposium (From BAPT): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm6GEpIyTRH62TAV4eFT7V46IUVzVVgfb
Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Want help finding your best fit psychological type? This (free) online personal exploration engine will walk you through the self-discovery process in about 20 minutes: https://app.personalitywizard.com/register?Code=personalitywizard-meghanlevota
A bunch of really smart people in the type world came together to make this online self-discovery experience possible, and it's highly recommended by me. View my profile to get an idea of what your report might look like: https://app.personalitywizard.com/profile/IBKFLIafbMIZDZ9
Listen to Psyche Design on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY. Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Join me and INTP Aud in a candid discussion about the trickster function. We reflect on quotes from Carl Jung, Mark Hunziker, John Beebe, and share our own experiences.
The trickster function is an area of the psyche that is so submerged by the shadow, that it can come out in very primitive ways. To the individual, this area feels like a mental blindspot. As Carl Jung says, “although he is not really evil, [the Trickster] does the most atrocious things from sheer unconsciousness and unrelatedness."
Find your trickster function:
ENFJ & ENTJ - Si
ENFP & ESFP - Ti
ESTP & ENTP - Fi
ESFJ & ESTJ - Ni
INFJ & ISFJ - Te
ISTJ & INTJ - Fe
INFP & INTP - Se
ISFP & ISTP - NeSupport Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Join me and INTP Aud in a candid discussion about the inferior function. We reflect on quotes from Jung, Marie Louise Von Franz, John Beebe, and share our own experiences. The inferior function is considered the key to the unconscious. It is both vulnerable and aspirational in nature.
As an ENFJ, my inferior function is introverted thinking, while Aud's inferior is extroverted feeling. That means we are both approaching the shadow from opposite sides of the same coin. In this episode, we explore how the inferior function manifests within us as we journey toward unlocking the key to the shadow.
Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project?
Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
Bouncing back and forth between the polarities of the psyche is like dancing with the shadow. You've got to let go of the tight grip your ego has on your preferences and surrender in order to truly be free.
In this episode, I discuss the attitude to take when you approach obstacles, allowing the shadow to come to light.
Next group discussion May 20. Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In this episode, I discuss how Jung's original intention with type was to solve the "problem of opposites" or the "type problem." 100 years later, we are feeling more divided than ever — culturally, politically, economically, etc. How do we solve this problem? And how can type help us heal?
Next group discussion May 20. Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
One of the best ways to understand how a personality type pattern operates in the psyche is with an example. Using my own experience and an example from John Beebe's book, I illustrate the story of the ENFJ journey.
How does this pattern unfold? It begins with the dominant extroverted feeling (Fe), then the supportive introverted intuition (Ni), then the childlike extroverted sensing (Se), then the wounded introverted thinking (Ti) in the inferior position.
Lying in the shadow is the ENFJ's oppositional "evil twin" introverted feeling (Fi), followed by the critical parent extroverted intuition (Ne), the trickster introverted sensing (Si), and the antagonistic extroverted thinking (Te).
Book reference: Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type: The reservoir of consciousness by John Beebe (Pg 22, Figure 5.9, Figure 5.10)
Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request?
Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
What is your default mode of functioning?
Each personality type pattern has an aspect of consciousness that they hold onto a little bit too tightly. In this episode, I explore the dominant function's hero archetype and how it might manifest in each of the types.
The Dominant Functions:
Extroverted Feeling (Fe)
- ENFJ
- ESFJExtroverted Thinking (Te)
- ENTJ
- ESTJIntroverted Feeling (Fi)
- INFP
- ISFPIntroverted Thinking (Ti)
- INTP
- ISTPExtroverted Intuition (Ne)
- ENFP
- ENTPExtroverted Sensing (Se)
- ESFP
- ESTPIntroverted Intuition (Ni)
- INFJ
- INTJIntroverted Sensing (Si)
- ISFJ
- ISTJAmanda Flaker's Aggressor/Victim/Savior Paradigm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vVrlAClRc&t=103s
Support Psyche Design on Patreon (membership + other perks): https://www.patreon.com/meghanlevota
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/ Got a fresh idea you wanna share?
Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In episode 3, we talked about the two orientations of the psyche: introversion and extroversion. This dichotomy is one way of dividing consciousness in two, grouping it by the psyche's attitude toward the outer and inner universe.
Irrational and rational consciousness is another way in which we can divide the psyche in two. Jung refers to both feeling and thinking functions as rational, while the intuition and sensing functions are irrational. Rational and rational functions behave in very different ways. While rational functions find fulfillment by accurately reflecting on right vs wrong or good vs bad, irrational functions exist beyond reason. Irrational functions live in flux and are keenly aware of their experience.
“Both intuition and sensation are functions that find fulfillment in the absolute perception of the flux of events. Hence, by their very nature, they will react to every possible occurrence and be attuned to the absolutely contingent, and must therefore lack all rational direction. For this reason, I call them irrational functions, as opposed to thinking and feeling, which find fulfillment only when they are in complete harmony with the laws of reason.” — Jung.
In this episode, I introduce why I refer to thinking and feeling as "creative functions" and sensing and intuition as "experiential functions." My understanding is that creative functions lead to knowing, and that experiential functions lead to being. No matter what your type, both are equally important to the human experience.
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
What’s the difference between ego and Self development?
Self development is the state of allowing unconscious contents of the psyche to emerge. This means integrating the unity of the collective consciousness. It is a transformational process that can occur within the individual, as Jung calls “the individuation process.” This is the process of becoming the Self.
Ego development, on the other hand, is when we allow our dominant way of processing to become tyrannical. Our ego attaches to its way of being and builds walls between it and anything that doesn’t validate its perspective. This process of fragmentation happens both internally and externally. The ego seeks validation so that it can continue to feel strong, big, and tough — when in reality, it is weak.
Ego development is often confused with Self development because it can make us feel like we’re getting better in the short term, but it ultimately keeps us stuck in the long term.
With Self development, we learn to bravely and freely navigate our psychic components. We learn to ride the wave of life, manage our projections, and ultimately develop a solid foundation for self trust and love. The consciousness of the Self becomes more expansive, which makes us stronger in the long run. By holding our grip on the ego a little lighter, we become freer and more able to handle whatever life throws with us.
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious. This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com -
In this episode, I discuss the nature of a personality type pattern and introduce John Beebe's 8 function model of the psyche.
Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psyche-design/id1548227570
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EkdgUj7DY2EBuM6uxb3q3?si=BJwVdtY_SdGrcNnslzP-QQ
DISCOVER THE UNIQUE MENTAL MATRIX OF YOUR PERSONALITY.
Hi, I'm Meghan LeVota — here to help you integrate your mind. I'm interested in cracking the code for how individuals can transform their relationships — with themselves and others — by integrating the psyche. This means illuminating the shadow, healing limiting beliefs, and navigating the collective unconscious.
This integration process becomes more manageable when one understands how their psyche functions. That’s where personality type comes in. By growing your conscious awareness of how your mind works, you gain conscious control over life. In other words, you’re getting your Ego on board with enlightenment, rather than forever feeling internal resistance.
For my current 1:1 offerings, available courses, and upcoming events: https://www.meghanlevota.com/
Got a fresh idea you wanna share? Do you have a media request? Interested in collaborating on a project? Contact me: https://www.meghanlevota.com/contact
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit psychedesign.substack.com - Näytä enemmän
