fbpx
Browsing Tag

INTJ

inspiration & influence introversion personality and story

How to make the best of introvert strengths in an extraverted world

July 22, 2017

 

introvert

I am an introvert, an INTJ in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator world and basically off the dial on introversion. Yet I have balanced this with a job that involves a huge amount of people interaction, talking in front of groups, leading and participating in many meetings with complex interactions. As a result, it’s not easy to make time to charge my batteries through time alone, even though it’s something I desperately need.

Learning to successfully negotiate this balance is an ongoing journey and finding the time for recharge is a challenge. I’m interested in working my introvert side, understanding its strengths and weaknesses, capitalising on it, identifying what I can bring to a situation. I want to make the best of my introvert abilities and work them rather than have them working, and sometimes exhausting, me.

Here are some key inspirations and influences on understanding your introvert strengths in the work sphere for greater impact and positive outcomes.

Leveraging the advantages of being an introvert at work – Penelope Trunk

This article from Penelope Trunk discusses how the world of work rewards and is basically set up around the needs of extraverts. Her article provides a balance to this by offering some tips for leveraging the advantages of introverts. These tips include:

  • working from the world of ideas
  • giving full attentiveness for a short, concentrated time
  • improving your self-knowledge of your type
  • teaching other people how best to interact with you as an introvert, and
  • learning about the job roles that would best suit you.

There are also some excellent references for further reading embedded in this insightful article.

Caring for your introvert – Jonathan Rauch

This classic 2003 article from The Atlantic is about understanding the orientations and needs of introverts. It looks at some common myths or assumptions about introverts and provides a balanced point of view. The article takes the perspective that introverts are misunderstood and dogged by stereotypes such as being shy. Rauch corrects this one by saying that “introverts are people who find other people tiring.”

Rauch has some good pointers for balancing time with people and finding time to charge again. His answers to a scan of issues about introverts (are they misunderstood? are they oppressed? what are the implications of extraverts dominating public life?) provide useful perspectives for introverts seeking to find points of strength and balance. I especially love the distinction between introverts who typically ‘think before talking’ vs extraverts who typically ‘think by talking’.

Top ten myths about introverts – Carl King

This article lists Carl’s top ten myths about introverts, in a similar vein and drawing on the book ‘The Introvert Advantage: How Quiet People Can Thrive in an Extrovert World’ by Marti Olsen-Laney.  It captures these myths in a pithy way I could instantly recognise. The article concludes:

‘It can be terribly destructive for an Introvert to deny themselves in order to get along in an Extrovert-Dominant World.’

Suggestions for managing this include: understanding the myths, linking in with other introverts for support and the need for extroverts to respect the ways of introverts.

Extroverts, introverts, aspies and codies – Venkatesh (Venkat) Rao

This article is a fascinating summary of introvert and extravert issues but takes a step further into the realm of microeconomicss, transactions and social psychology. The article explores energy in the exchange from the introvert and extravert point of view. It also reviews:

  • how introverts and extraverts manage isolation vs physical contact
  • 1:1 encounters and their depth
  • weak-link social fields such as coffee shops
  • strong-link social fields such as family gatherings
  • relationships over time and relationships with strangers.

Venkat also looks at how the tension between extraverts and introverts plays out in the slang terms they use or might use for each other. For example, ‘aspies’ (a term used by extraverts for introverts and linked to Asberger’s Syndrome) and ‘codie’s ( a possible term as none exists and linked to co-dependency). Venkat concludes by saying that introversion is becoming far more visible, resulting in shifts in the landscape of social psychology.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain

The publication of  Quiet in 2012 was a significant milestone in the landscape of literature about introvert strengths and how to work them. This book changed my life as I read page after page of narrative that explained so clearly the way I operated in the world. Backed by extensive evidence, cutting edge research, neuroscience and stories of real people, ‘Quiet’ helped me make sense of so much. As a result, I better understood myself and especially my unique powers of negotiation and leadership. The practical strategies exemplified assisted me to work my specific strengths and also manage my energy far more effectively.

These strengths include:

  • thorough and detailed preparation
  • asking the right questions at the right time
  • active listening
  • ability to focus intensely and be in flow
  • working more slowly, carefully and deliberately
  • the ability to take strong positions and come across calmly and with reason

introverts

Quiet Influence: The Introvert’s Guide to Making a Difference by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler

Jennifer Kahnweiler’s Quiet Influence was another game changer for me in understanding how you can have influence in quiet ways. It provides a response to the problem often experienced by introverts: “In every performance review, I’m told I need to speak up more.” I’ve experienced this and I knew it wasn’t the problem or the solution! This book helped me realise that I had strengths – quieter strengths – that I needed to recognise as such and deploy more effectively.

These influence strategies for making a quiet difference include:

  • taking quiet time
  • preparation
  • engaged listening
  • focused conversations
  • writing
  • thoughtful use of social media

Learning how to use these strategies more effectively made an enormous difference to my impact and influence. I felt better about myself as I was more in flow with my natural energies rather than trying to be more extraverted. Quiet influence is a far more empowering and instinctive place from which to work.

Unpack your introvert strengths

I was fascinated to read in Penelope Trunk’s article above that my type, INTJ, has the longest Wikipedia page:

‘Because the combination of being an introvert and being ideas-driven makes one very interested in learning about oneself. INTJ’s are an extreme case, but all introverts have this combination to some extent, and the self-knowledge will help you put yourself in situations where you’ll have the most positive impact.’

It’s true, I am an extreme case and this summary is a piece of evidence testifying to that, an addition to the INTJ genre. True to type,  I can’t tell you how energising I found the experience of researching and writing it.

But for everyone, self-knowledge helps you make the most of your natural strengths. I hope this article is useful in identifying and unpacking your strengths and working your introvert. Or that it helps in the all important perspective of better understanding the ways of those around you.

How do you work your introvert? I’d love to hear!

Note: This post was originally published on my blog Transcending in 2011 as ‘Working your Introvert’. It’s updated in July 2017 to reflect key additional influences since that time.

Feature image via pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

introverts

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. My free e-book on the books that have shaped my story is coming soon for subscribers only – so sign up to be the first to receive it!

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on intuition, influence, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

Being a vessel – or working with Introverted Intuition

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

8 Comments
inspiration & influence introversion work life

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

May 15, 2017
quiet light quote

As a proud introvert, I am keen to promote quiet voices speaking in the world.

I’m sharing a piece here that was originally published in Issue 1 of The Introvert Effect Magazine edited by Katherine Mackenzie-Smith in February 2017.

Just because you are quiet by nature, it doesn’t meant you can’t speak out and influence. You might do this a little differently to what feels like mainstream approaches. And it can take a little while to learn how your skills can best be played out.

My piece is an account of how I learned to understand and work the gifts of introversion. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome your thoughts especially if you have had similar experiences.

Evolving as an introvert

I’ve always been aware of a sense of feeling a little different, a bit quieter, slightly outside the mainstream. Not necessarily in a bad way, but enough to feel at a distance from what was happening at times and to not say as much as I wanted.

As a young adult, I was drawn to the work of Carl Jung, to his visions, dreams and insights and to his writing on symbols, synchronicity and personality.

I found some of his Collected Works volumes with images of mandalas that I would gaze into as if they held something secret.

I became a teacher of adult literacy and then over time, a leader in adult education, heading up large work groups, honing the vision for my teams and business area, delivering educational programs that made a difference and developing the people that worked with me.

I’ve always been interested in personal development and creativity, mine and other people’s. Learning to me is paramount and even if the terrain is tough, there’s knowledge, experience and strength from that. I incorporated and shared these lessons in my work as a leader and in more personal writing on my blog.

Do you ever close the door?

With all of this, it wasn’t until I worked through my Jung/Myers-Briggs psychological type type with a coach that I began to truly understand myself and the key to how I work.

I identified as an INTJ personality type – Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging – with a very strong preference for the I – Introverted.

I remember a single moment in the debriefing conversation when my coach said to me:

“Do you ever close the door?”

I can remember my stunned silence.

It seemed so obvious and still does. But the words were like a permission slip that I clearly needed to be authentic in my work in the world.

Leadership in our 24/7 world, filled with social media and electronic devices, implies always being available and accessible. These simple words about closing the door as my source of power and learning to respect this, ironically, opened the door to so much.

After that, I did start to close the door briefly and found it so valuable in getting peace and focus. I still do whatever I can to breathe, to collect my thoughts, to envision, to put the pieces together in a mind-map, to research, to craft words and to prepare for the next interaction.

Shining a quiet light

A few years later, I read Susan Cain’s ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking’. It was another watershed time and I understood myself more deeply as the words unfolded.

These words from Susan Cain spoke to me:

Everyone shines, given the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight, for others, a lamplit desk.

It’s true: I shine most brightly from the light of my desk or from the shade of trees at the beach where I sit writing, feet in the sand, staring out into the water and sunlight. All the incandescent ideas and visions flow from that inward space.

It’s not better than a Broadway stage, it’s just different. But it has taken me years to realise it’s just as significant a power as the brighter magic of a more extraverted and colourful performance. And it’s also taken me time to have confidence in this quiet strength as a source of expression and wisdom.

I’ve been told in my professional life, as I’m sure many introverts have, to “speak up more” and also to consider “voice coaching”.

There are times when this might be helpful and to some extent there’s truth in there. However, I gained the ability to speak up and influence more effectively through learning to work my introvert by sharpening up my practices of how I prepare, strategise, listen and write.

From this base, I can speak to large groups without undue stress and have impact in challenging negotiation contexts.

Gifts of introversion

I can follow the flow of discussion in a meeting that meanders and then sum up the main ideas into a distilled message for future action.

I can listen in a very focused way and ask the right questions to help others move ahead. I can use my strategic writing ability to bring diverse ideas together to influence an outcome or argue for a position.

I have always had these skills to some degree. Over time, I have had to learn to recognise them as assets and to deploy them more appropriately and with confidence.

The linchpin has been the awareness of knowing the symbolic and practical power of the closed door and the lamplit desk, working from the wellspring of private moments however I can find them.

And it’s not that other people are not involved or important.

Connecting with critical others, listening to others’ ideas, engaging with creative communities and working with coaches and mentors are all part of the rich mix of input.

But it’s the quiet moment of distilling all of this knowledge and experience to its essence that is the vital catalyst for action.

We are all on a hero’s (or heroine’s) journey.

As Steven Pressfield says in ‘Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work’:

In the hero’s journey, the wanderer returns home after years of exile, struggling, and suffering. He brings a gift for the people. That gift arises from what the hero has seen, what he has endured, what he has learned. But the gift is not that raw material alone. It is the ore refined into gold by the hero/ wanderer/ artist’s skilled and loving hands.

You are that artist.

For the introvert, this important work of refining, distilling and reworking is more likely to happen if we can find space in our days.

And if there are silent walks along the beach, or elsewhere, collecting thoughts like shells.

And if we remember that the gentle light of ideas can be just as radiant as any stage performance, illuminating dark corners with presence.

Next steps in my personal journey

The next step in my personal journey is to take this learning forward. As an INTJ, my dominant function is Introverted Intuition and I’m activating this power now with more awareness.

I’m combining my passions for learning, teaching, writing, Carl Jung’s ideas and MBTI tools to support people to harness their particular brand of brilliance to express their voice in the world.

Learning to work our introvert strengths to deploy our gifts ensures that the unique voice of what we love, who we are and what we have learned is not drowned out.

We can never know the difference our influence can make or the impact we can have on another’s life journey.

Recognising our abilities, crafting the raw material of our lives and then communicating the gold we find can be the greatest offering, enabling others to likewise shine.

shine a quiet light

About the author, Terri Connellan

Terri Connellan is a certified life coach, author and accredited psychological type practitioner. She has a Master of Arts in Language and Literacy, two teaching qualifications and a successful 30-year career as a teacher and a leader in adult vocational education. Her coaching and writing focus on three elements—creativity, personality and self-leadership—especially for women in transition to a life with deeper purpose. Terri works with women globally through her creative business, Quiet Writing, encouraging deeper self-understanding of body of work, creativity and psychological type for more wholehearted and fulfilling lives. Her book Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition  and the accompanying Wholehearted Companion Workbook were published in September 2021 by the kind press. She lives and writes in the outskirts of Sydney surrounded by beach and bush.

Join the Quiet Writing mailing list and receive your free Chapter 1 of Wholehearted or my Personal Action Checklist for more Meaning and Purpose. Just click on the link to choose and it will be with you in no time plus I’ll receive inspirational insights and connect with a community of like-minded people.

Book your Self-leadership Discovery Call with Terri here.

Read Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Want to learn more about personality, creativity and self-leadership for positive transition to the life you desire?

Head over to read about Wholehearted and the accompanying Companion Workbook now.

Available in paperback and ebook from retailers listed here:

Wholehearted

Companion Workbook

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Introverted Intuition: Learning from its Mystery

Self-leadership as the most authentic heart of leadership

Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

Working your introvert

How to make the most of recruitment opportunities as an introvert

Introverted and extraverted intuition – how to make intuition a strong practice

Background photo for featured image from pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

creativity inspiration & influence intuition

An invitation to mastery – Full Moon in Scorpio tarot reading

May 12, 2017
full moon scorpio

The Full Moon in Scorpio invites us think about how we move towards mastery. This tarot reading for the full moon reflects on ways to embrace our power.

Here are some thoughts on this Full Moon in Scorpio from Mystic Mamma to set the scene for the energies available to us:

*FULL MOON* in SCORPIO opens a gateway to our truest depths, where we can really tune in to our hearts deepest desires, and gleam our truest reflection.

If we can take this time to sit with ourselves, and be truthful about all we reject and deny, we can uncover, untangle and reclaim ourselves in our fullness.

We are both light and shadow, dancing and meeting each other in each other, to be ultimately reconciled within.

This dance is one of mastery, a blossoming and continuous unfoldment…

Scorpio reminds us to take pleasure in the journey and allow our watery depths to surface, cleanse, heal and empower.

I love the words “this dance is one of mastery”. The word ‘mastery’ has been floating around me for a while now, especially around ‘invitation to mastery’. This is a phrase from Colette Baron-Reid’s The Enchanted Map oracle guidebook that spoke to me deeply some time ago and has stayed with me.

This Scorpio Full Moon provides a fabulous opportunity to work with our intentions, our long-held goals and to step into our power. It seems to be about light and shadow, reconciling opposites and moving on and through.

Full moon in Scorpio tarot reading tools:

It’s important to get the tools that feel right for the journey to tarot guidance. Though of course your intuition and the Full Moon itself are a fabulous start and the most essential ingredients!

For my reading for the Scorpio Full Moon I worked with:

This Scorpio Full Moon tarot spread by Sam Roberts aka @escapingstars on IG:

Full moon Scorpio

The Sakki Sakki tarot deck by Monicka Clio Sakki which is still my favourite tarot deck especially for questions around creativity. My overall thoughts and questions for this time were focused on entrepreneurship, creativity and success. So a perfect match!

It was a quiet morning with a lime, basil and mandarin candle and lots of thoughts of how to make this creativity of mine into a new career, life and lifestyle.

Tarot reading:

So here’s the reading laid out on a beautiful piece of linen, hand sewn by my mother, because she is all important right now, it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday, and I’m thinking of her love and strength.

tarot reading

I pulled the cards one by one as I like the mystery of discovery and interpreting each card in itself and then putting the narrative together. But first up – look at all those Swords! Three cards from the suit of Swords and five of the cards have swords featured. And I’m sure The Chariot driver might even have a sword hidden somewhere in his belt!

Swords are all about the intellect, strategy, cut through, getting the story together – the mastery of it all. As an INTJ in Myer-Briggs personality preference, swords (closely followed by Wands) are my favourite suit in tarot. And the Queen of Swords who appears here is the card that most aligns to my core personality. Introverted Intuition is a dominant gift for me but it’s combining that intuition with the intellect where I can really shine.

And with three Major Arcana cards also: The Chariot, The Emperor and Justice – there’s some really strong energy here to work with about breaking through, taking leadership, getting organised and balancing competing energies to get something really special happening.

Tarot reading – card by card:

So here’s some deeper thoughts, card by card, in relation to the questions. I mainly worked intuitively with some key supporting words from the Sakki Sakki tarot guidebook.

1 Which area of my life needs to be valued more? The CHARIOT

  • bringing together diverse interests
  • balancing light and shadow
  • managing polarities positively
  • driving forward with strength

Key words from the Sakki Sakki tarot: combining thought and feeling: “how conflict can be resolved positively through struggles in our own psyche”

One of the key things I have been experiencing and working on this year is this managing of polarities, especially between thought and feeling. This card says it’s time to work those opposites and harness them into something that is uniquely me and values this.

2 How can I best get my needs met? The EMPEROR

  • bring in some of that yang, masculine energy!
  • be organised, take control, practice leadership, self-leadership
  • be active, not passive or waiting for others, take the lead
  • marshall my resources, call the shots
  • get those organising principles sorted, set the framework
  • get some order and structure in place

Key words from Sakki Sakki tarot: “The Emperor is the rational mind controlling creative flow and emotions, maximizing their potential within a framework.”

It’s true – I need a framework for my days and routine even if it’s a flexible one. I need to work out how to manage and balance my different needs and those of others. I need structure to reach my vision and goals as well as meet my own self-care needs. And it’s about taking the lead more in my life, that self-leadership, that will enable me to do this and get my needs met.

3 What depths within myself need to be explored in order to move forward?

PAGE OF SWORDS

  • listening to myself, those thought bubbles and creative ideas that come
  • dance with them a little more, play with the intellect and ideas to connect them
  • bring forward new opportunities by being agile and tapping into my sources of knowledge and using them in new ways
  • creative innovation

Key words from Sakki Sakki tarot: alert, versatile, quick-minded, well-informed, charming inside and outside

This is interesting. I know that the INTP from Myers-Briggs is the sort that has eight books on the go – with lots of ideas and opportunities to connect them. And I do feel that energy right now. I need to tap more into this well-informed body of knowledge, the intellectual and emotional value built up over time from all that I have read, experienced and learned. And I need to work out ways to share that to move forward. It’s things like combining books, coaching, MBTI, writing and tarot in unique ways to serve and support other people as well as myself on this journey.

4 What aid comes from the Universe to guide me?   QUEEN OF SWORDS

  • energy of thought, intellect, discernment, power of the mind
  • ability to cut through to what matters, to weave a path through a thought jungle
  • ability to create a strategy for creative entrepreneurship
  • success through clarity of thought
  • trust, stop doubting and commit

Key words from Sakki Sakki tarot: wise, intellectual, independent, courageous, learning through painful experiences.

It’s always exciting when a card you strongly relate to comes in as aid from the Universe to guide you. Perhaps it’s always so but I do need the Queen of Swords and her INTJ thinking about feelings right now. It’s about digging into my own brand of unique wisdom and thought but feeling into it as well. I need to let my intellect take the leadership in this self-leadership journey as all the swords are suggesting. But it’s wisdom from spirit and strength to cut a swathe to balance those polarities into a life and creative path that is uniquely mine. It’s intellectual ideas and playing with them creatively, Page of Swords style!

5 What boundaries must I create for myself ? SIX OF SWORDS

  • energy at a time of transition
  • knowing what to take forward, what to leave behind
  • moving on through grief, sadness so that positive energy can come through
  • keep water around me, space around me so can travel creatively where I need to go
  • space for creative spiritual journeys
  • boundaries and supports around balancing self-care whilst caring for others

Key words from Sakki Sakki tarot: spiritual journey, travel, release of anxiety, progress in spite of past difficulties, advancement through detachment

The Six of Swords is the card that symbolised this new life journey in my Welcome message to my new Quiet Writing site. It’s a beautiful card of transition and crossing the water, and taking some things on board and leaving others behind. It’s a time of creating boundaries around energy and self-care too. These are all things I have been experiencing and learning through coaching and through working with intuitive healer Amber Adrian. It also reinforces that home, where I am surrounded by water, is healing and critical to my health and creative wellbeing.

6 What needs to be done NOW to lay the foundation for my higher vision of my Self ? JUSTICE

  • getting balance and alignment in my life
  • using that energy of the swords to create discernment, strategy and cut through
  • make the path and settle any transition issues that I can resolve so I can move through
  • decide on portions of time and focus, adjust priorities and restore balance in line with my goals

Key words from Sakki Sakki tarot: balance: “Justice is Wise, and holds the Sword that slices up everything into fair portions. To achieve balance and fairness, sometimes you have to give something up – other times you have to accept more.”

Justice suggests it’s time to work with the swords to identify the best apportioning of my time in line with my priorities. This is a theme throughout this reading. It suggests that it’s a fluid process in line with this Scorpio Full Moon energy and that I need also to remember to enjoy it all. Do the work, set the framework and identify the priorities but include joy and fun in there as well. Creativity is joyful and as the words from Mystic Mamma above reminds us,

take pleasure in the journey and allow our watery depths to surface, cleanse, heal and empower.

Ways to embrace mastery

So are your thoughts also around mastery of a skill or project and how to make your creativity into a new career, life and lifestyle?

If so, here are some questions around this prompted by the Scorpio full moon, the tarot spread by Sam Roberts and reflections on my own tarot reading.

They are around embracing mastery and getting back into the driver’s seat in creativity and entrepreneurial plans.

Journal or brainstorm around them to help your own dance of mastery begin to unfold further at this time of opportunity:

  • What is it you want to master and why?
  • Where do you have comprehensive skill and knowledge and how can you step into that more?
  • What will help you be the leader of this creative project – Emperor-style?
  • Where can you practice strong self-leadership?
  • What polarities or diverse qualities can you balance or bring together in a unique way?
  • Where is the light and shadow in your life and what can they bring out in each other in your project or creative work?
  • What areas of your life do you need to value more, Chariot-style, where you might be breaking new ground?
  • Where are you not trusting your strong natural or developed knowledge and skill? How can you tap into this more?
  • How can you best get your needs met and set some boundaries? Is it more structure or less? Is it a rigid or flexible framework? Do you need more routine?
  • Danielle LaPorte has a series of wisdom paradoxes in her new White Hot Truth book and summarised here. Think about paradox as a key to mastering a project or skill and feeling balanced: How can you have vision and go with the flow? How can you be open-hearted and have clear boundaries as you work?
  • Where you can take pleasure in and enjoy this journey to mastery?

Wisdom from The Chariot

And here is some final wisdom from The Chariot via the Art of Life Tarot:

The Chariot

May the unique vision and value of what you love be the energy that propels you to new places of mastery. May you share your loves with us and may you enjoy the dance.

Full Moon image from pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. New opportunities and special offers coming soon including probono coaching opportunities.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Healing with words of gold: The Empress, Kintsugi and alchemy

The Empress: creativity, vision and patience

Dance to a new beat – Full Moon in Virgo

creativity inspiration & influence intuition

Intuition, writing and work: eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

May 5, 2017

“And you can keep flexing your intuition (because it’s like a muscle) to feel into the next right step.”

Danielle LaPorte, White Hot Truth

intuition

“Standing all this while
Makes me realise I am alive
And I won’t settle.”

Vera Blue, Settle

Intuitive night thoughts lead the way

I wake in the night with the words of the song, Settle, running through my head. It’s true, it’s hard to settle into a rhythm now with so much creativity and opportunity running around my head. And now these thoughts… I hop up to note them down as I know I won’t remember them in the morning.

The night thoughts connect up and there’s a triangle with three threads spinning a story about:

  1. the lyrics of the song, Settle, linking to my swimming in the ocean, feeling alive amongst fish
  2. the novel I’m reading ‘To the Sea’, by Christine Dibley about women and daughters, ancestry and relationships to the sea, featuring swimming as a central metaphor; and
  3. movement, yoga and that sense of keeping moving right now amidst a touch of fog and uncertainty but with so many quiet lights of myself shining.

It’s interesting how things come together, in your life and in your mind. The synchronicity of choice, the noticing of this, the connections that you make, the influences that you choose and attract. If you’re paying attention, attuning to the energy and the signs, things come together, messages and a way of working with them emerge in your life.

The guiding hand of intuition

Intuition is a guiding force for me. It’s a dominant MBTI function and gift I’m learning to work with more. It’s one of my five Core Desired Feelings, defined as a result of working through The Desire Map.

It used to be just a vague sort of gut feeling, especially coming in a work context when something just didn’t feel right. But I know now it’s so much deeper. It’s how I want to feel as I work and write. I want it to be the engine of my writing, the heartbeat of my days’ rhythm, the light that guides me one step at a time, knowing the overall destination but with the journey itself as the real discovery.

It’s about feeling it as I go instead of thinking it all the time. Softening into it, being receptive and independent, organised but flexible, influenced by others but allowing my authentic voice and loves to combine and come through, clear and shining.

It’s knowing that my unique collation of experiences and expression may be exactly the ones to strike a light in another and trusting that. The learning I uncover can be shared to help others strike up their own special connections and spark of genius.

Knowing what to do next

I’m finding that I’m writing and working this way more now. For example, I’m finding that I’m reaching out to read what is right for me when I need it.  The novel I’m currently reading, ‘To the Sea’, speaks of women, daughters, ancestry, movement and swimming as all these areas align to assume pivotal places in my life.

‘The Butterfly Hours’ on transforming memories into memoirs is a library book picked at random and opened recently at random. I find the perfect words about fiction and memoir writing there that have helped me delineate more clearly what I want to write and how.

Sure I chose these books because they are my interests but it’s about tuning into what I need to know or experience right now, sometimes let it work unknowingly.

It’s also about what I’m choosing to listen to and when to listen, to songs for example, and which ones, which random playlists and what they ignite, the words that run like a stream in the night fuelling creative thoughts.

It’s the podcasts or audiobooks I choose to listen to. Just yesterday, two podcasts acted as perfect counterpoints around the two themes of intuitive writing and intuitive working.

The first from Caroline Donahue’s The Secret Library Podcast was a conversation with Madelyn Kent about sense writing and building connection with body and movement as a way of opening up possibilities in writing. It was about being in movement in the body as a way of connecting with flow in writing and relaxing into new awareness. Deep and rich, I let its insightful messages wash over me as I listened.

The second from Sara Tasker’s Hashtag Authentic was a fabulous chat with Jen Carrington about creating the ideal work week. They talk honestly about being entrepreneurial breadwinners and how to create a work week that honours both self-care and productivity. They get work done in their own ways, following their body’s messages and their spirit and not buying into traditional work structures like measuring effort in hours spent. I felt so refreshed from listening to these women with their distinctive northern English accents talking so comfortably about breaking new ground and not settling for others’ definitions of how to work. They both create outstanding content and entrepreneurial work that supports others to shine from working intuitively with sense and feeling.

Intuition as a guide: Eight ways to work it

So it seems intuition can be a quiet guide in so many ways if we listen to its magic. Here are eight ways to work with intuition that I have discovered are working for me and some questions to prompt you into how to put it into practice. Granted there might be some thinking and sensing work in there too. But it’s not a brick wall, it’s a continuum, so shift to letting your intuition do the talking for a while and see what happens:

  1. What to read next – What do you need to read now – is it fiction, non-fiction or a combination of both? What does your heart need – to rest with a book, to learn or to be inspired? What do you need to know? What do you want to feel? Are you limiting to yourself to just one book when you could be more spontaneous and read more randomly, picking up pieces of wisdom that way?
  2. What to listen to and when – Do you need music right now or to hear the spoken work like a podcast? What are you tuning into? What do you need to be learning? What random playlist, podcast or subject is calling you or popping up consistently for your attention?
  3. Which project to work on next – Of all the projects waving at you for your attention, which one can you work on now with ease and which will be harder? Which one feels right? Even though one might be harder, does that need to be done first even though you are not sure why?
  4. When to move and how – Which form of physical exercise will get you moving in the right way to free you up? What environment will ignite your feelings and inspire you? Is it walking to the local cafe, being by the beach, wandering through the bush or walking around the city? Is it yoga, walking, running or cycling? What type of exercise might free up your writing eg free-writing, making a list or colouring in first?
  5. How to structure your week to best reach your goals – Whether you have a day job or are self-employed, how can you manage your work week best to manage self-care and reach your goals? How can it be both enjoyable and productive? Is there anything you can do to find the creative space you need? Which days are best for which projects? How can you reach your goals in ways that work for you?
  6. What rhythms can you bring into your life to support flow – When do you work best and how can you take advantage of that? How can exercise and movement help establish a rhythm you can take into other areas of your life? What time of day do you work best and how can you make the most of that? What about working with the moon and other cycles to facilitate a balance between receptivity and action?
  7. What intuitive tools do you choose to help guide you – Which tarot or oracle decks or cards are speaking to you? What about lunar cycles, astrology, spirit guides or quotations that inspire you? How are you working with them and how can you harness their power more effectively?
  8. Which rich combination of influences will come together to make you shine your most radiant light to help others along the way? Take the time to dream, journal, mind-map, brainstorm, draw, draft, blog, write a poem, to bring together connections for new insights and share them with others to inspire them.

Intuition, discovery and seeing anew

So taking these learnings and reflections, I weave a new narrative through an intuitive and creative work week.

Rebecca Campbell, in Rise, Sister, Rise, talks of needing to learn what her subtle mental, emotional and spiritual bodies needed:

…I have discovered that my subtle bodies most yearn for meaningful, flowing, physical movement where I can move and express myself freely. I find that my creations actually depend on it. As I allow my body to release and fluidly move it’s as if I am both strengthening my ability to be moved by my soul and unlocking wisdom within my spiritual body.

 

intuition

That is the case for me also and I feel the flow of: my arms stroking the water steadily and stronger; my breath acting as an anchor as I stretch into yin yoga moves; and words arriving at night and then shaping them into a rough draft in the daytime.

I feel the rhythm of what a new work week could look and feel like – how to balance my creative desires and serve others in the best way I can whilst also managing self-care and the all important care of special others.

I feel, I feel, I feel the rhythm of the sea, of movement, of words on a page calling me to a new sense of home and being settled.

It’s also about learning to balance this intuitive flow and be practical and of service:

  • writing in a way that reflects and expresses me but is helping and encouraging for others, not just self-focused;
  • managing my self-care so I can support the care of others and not fall over in the process; and
  • honouring the influence of others in informing and finding my own unique, creative path.

It’s not about abandoning goals. We need a roadmap, we need to set goals so we know our overall direction and the three most important things to do this quarter, this week to help us get there. But knowing we can be flexible in our creativity, not working so slavishly, can be immensely freeing.

As Danielle LaPorte says in ‘Wisdom is Paradoxical‘:

Have a vision and…Go with the flow.

The Knight of Wands card arrived this morning as my daily weather report and he captures the feeling perfectly. Via the Art of Life Tarot, this Knight reminds us:

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

intuitive writing

 

Thought Pieces and key references:

Books:
To the Sea – Christine Dibley
The Butterfly Hours: transforming memories into memoir – Patty Dann
An Abundant Life: Flourishing with the cycles of the moon, Dr Ezzie Spencer

Songs influencing post:
Settle – Vera Blue
Awake Me – Rosie Carney
Mercy – Duffy (this was for the movement part!)

Podcasts:
The Secret Library Podcast with Caroline Donahue (@thebookdr): #48 Madelyn Kent Unlocks Writers block within the Body, 27 April 2017
Hashtag Authentic with Sara Tasker (@meandorla): Podcast 14 Creating your ideal working week, with Jen Carrington, 3 May 2017

Blog posts:
The problem with consistency (aka the beautiful wabi sabiness of it all) – The Mojo Lab with Victoria Smith
The 3X3 Project – Week 10 – Crone Confidence with Diana Frajman

Feature image from Shutterstock.com and used with permission and thanks.

Keep in touch + read about the 36 books that shaped my story

You can download my free ebook on the 36 books that have shaped my story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type developments, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

36 Books that Shaped my Story: Reading as Creative Influence

Overwhelm, intuition and thinking

Music, intuition and the messages of songs

Healing with words of gold: The Empress, Kintsugi and alchemy

The Empress: creativity, vision and patience

2 Comments
intuition music & images

Music, intuition and messages of songs

March 2, 2017

Before we live what’s next, it always seems like there is some answer we need to arrive at. But daring to enter, we are humbled to discover, again and again, that the act of living itself unravels both the answer and the question. When we watch, we remain riddles to be solved. when we enter, we become songs to be sung.

Mark Nepo – The Book of Awakening – for 3 March

lyrics intuition

There’s a special form of intuition that comes through music and the lyrics of songs that is there if you listen.

Lines of music in the night

Recently, this intuition has been speaking to me through lines of music in the night. It’s more than just remembered music, the lines stuck in your head. It comes as random lines, perhaps from something I’ve been listening to but sometimes it’s a song I haven’t listened to for a while. This intuitive messaging via lyrics, song and music is marked by the qualities of being:

  • random
  • meaningful
  • repeated
  • a direct message
  • sometimes almost painstakingly pointed, sometimes a little more oblique
  • insistent enough to wake you night after night.

It’s a strange phenomenon. I’ve always been a lover of music, lyrics and the poetry of songs but it’s only lately that I can remember waking up with insistent and direct musical messages coming to me.

The most recent experience has been hearing the lines of  ‘New York’ by Alicia Keys coming to me in my own voice. And it’s a specific set of lines that keeps coming to me in the night over and over:

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new…

Read more: Alicia Keys – New York Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I haven’t listened to this song for ages and I’ve never been to New York but I understand its symbolism.

The main message for me is the inspiring words: ‘There’s nothing you can’t do’. It seems like an intuitive message from spirit, from angels, from ancestors. I don’t really know who it’s from, but it’s a message of encouragement from my intuition, just as rainbows appear in my life at key points. It’s saying that I’m on the right track, able to do much, and to tap into a collective creative spirit such as New York as a city might symbolise.

Intuition, symbols and learning to listen

Personality types for whom introverted intuition is a dominant or auxiliary function are the ones most likely to be finding this type of intuition coming to them. MBTI types who tend to rely on or experience this type of visionary insight are: INFJ, INTJ, ENFJ and ENTJ. People with these personality types can find that answers come from an interior intuitive kind of knowing. This can be via symbolic ways such as images, metaphors, lines of songs, words and dreams. And all people can learn to strengthen this type of intuitive insight whatever their type.

It tends to come as a whole piece that summarises the answer, feeling or thought succinctly in a kind of code you can hear or read if you learn to listen. It’s similar to how we can learn the language and symbolism of dreams. But like dreams, you almost have to go through an education or opening to its wisdom which is collective in nature but individual in context and application.

Intuitive Friday and intuitive music

I launched a hashtag project a while ago called #intuitivefriday about taking time to celebrate intuition in a mindful and deep way on Friday.

@todorf shared a particularly beautiful piece on considering intuition from the perspective of lyrics that move you, the poetry in compositions and people’s stories of lives changed by a piece of music or song:

20 Pieces of Music That Changed the World  is the most amazing series on music and influence and its impact to make change from an interior to a wider world. It is about “feelings which coalesced in music first then moved out into the rest of society”. I am so thankful to @todorf (nod) for sharing this.

I was struck by the comments in the introduction to the first episode by Robert Harris about music as an “emotional package”, which has the “ability to crystallise emotional states”. He talks about how music:

has the power to show us a future that we only dimly understand intellectually but understand emotionally.

Music is unmediated and “beyond the power of words” but “our brains understand it instantly.”

Lyrics and intuition

So lyrics, lines of songs, coming to me in this way unmediated in the middle of night, through words somehow beyond the power of words, is a kind of intuition.

When I wake in the middle of the night, I get up to capture the words in my notebook in the dark because I know I will lose them if I don’t. They are a knowing without knowing, words beyond words, and a dialogue with spirit that I need to heed and listen to. They are messages from beyond that we need to get in some way though we do not always fully understand.

As I finish this piece, the lyrics singing out in the room from my own Spotify playlist are from The Stranglers’ ‘Skin Deep’:

Some days there’s things on your mind you should keep

Sometimes, it’s tougher to look than to leap

better watch out for the skin deep…

It’s a song I have listened to over and over, nodding and smiling, watching out for the skin deep, going deeper, leaping rather than looking and understanding that some days there truly are things on my mind I should pay close quiet attention to.

That power of music, lyrics, songs to reach from the beyond – or into the future –  has a magical ability to make you smile, understand or get a sense of something.

Every life is a language no one knows. With every heart-break, discovery and unexpected moment of joy, with every lift of music that touches us where we didn’t think we could be touched, with every experience, another letter in our alphabet is decoded. Take a step; learn a word. Feel a feeling; decode a sign. Accept a truth; translate a piece of mystery written in your heart.

Mark Nepo – The Book of Awakening – for 3 March

Thought pieces

Love to hear your thoughts on music and intuition:

  • When has a song or music come to you in the night? What did it say and what does it mean to you?
  • When have you sung words, listened to lyrics knowing they deliver something deeper that you don’t as yet understand ?
  • What music, songs, lyrics takes you back to a special moment you can hardly put into words? One that enables you to be able to capture exactly where you were, what you felt: the tears, the laughter, the grief, the purest emotion that you could not put into words if you tried?
  • What song has changed the world for you?
  • What’s your favourite song and you don’t even really know why?
lyrics music intuition

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can download my free 95-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Intuition, writing and work – eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

Lyrebird: spirit animal for Quiet Writing

4 Comments
inspiration & influence introversion intuition poetry

Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

February 10, 2017


Practising introverted intuition

Introverted Intuition is my dominant preference as an INTJ Myers-Briggs Type. I’ve been working recently at how to tap more into this strength more. It’s a creative gift and I am focusing on how to translate this into words.

Learning to be aware of and capture my night thoughts has been a crucial part of this. This post outlines how I’m working with my introverted intuition to inspire my creativity and direction. I hope it may also inspire yours.

What is introverted intuition?

Introverted intuition is one of the eight psychological types developed by Carl Jung and described in his work, ‘Psychological Types‘ first published in 1921. Jung saw these different personality types as gifts. Introverted Intuition can be seen as having the gift of visionary insight. Angelina Bennet in The Shadows of Type, describes Introverted Intuition this way:

Introverted Intuitive types quickly see the connections between things and use these to create new concepts. They enjoy theory, innovative ideas and making connections. They are motivated by implementing original ideas and value inspiration and originality.

So true! Another phrase to describe the Introverted Intuitive is ‘The Seer’. Gary and Margaret Hartzler in their book, Functions of Type, describe the hallmarks of Introverted Intuiting skills, including:

  • insights that seem to come out of thin air and learning to rely on them
  • the ability to see intrinsic patterns and working with them from different perspectives, and
  • being energised by and making meaningful connections using visions, images and symbols.

From this you can see why an Introverted Intuitive like me loves poetry, imagery, writing, strategising, big picture visioning and imagining what might be. Balance can be provided by realising that some things are just as they are and by focusing on the senses more. This rounding out tends to develop more fully later in life. As Hartzler & Hartzler put it:

This leads the individual to being much stronger, both ethereal and real.

What a fantastic combination to strive for! This post describes and explores the experience of working with introverted intuition to make it both ethereal and real.

Listening to introverted intuition

On this occasion, I wake in the night with a word clearly in my mind. It happens quite often. This time, the word is ‘vessel’. I note the word down, knowing that, as clear as it is, it can be forgotten by the morning. When day breaks, I reflect on this word that spoke to me from my inner voice in the night.

I start with definitions and check in with Google and dictionary.com and come up with:
• a ship or large boat
• a hollow container, especially one used to hold liquid, such as a bowl or cask
• a duct or canal holding or conveying blood or other fluid.
• person regarded as a holder or receiver of something, especially something nonmaterial: e.g. a vessel of grace; a vessel of wrath.

In essence, I see it’s about being a receptacle or conduit, especially in relation to liquids or transportation, and apparently derives from the Latin word ‘vascellum’, meaning ‘vase’ and also ‘ship’.

Being a vessel

I think of what ‘vessel’ might mean at this time: being a conduit, a channel, surrendering a bit more, allowing things to move through me as blood moves, intuition, ideas, finding my purpose, what others might need, with me as a channel. Maybe it’s about a quieter way of being, without the ego chattering away.

I wouldn’t want to be an empty vessel making the most noise. I would hope that I could be a vessel that can conduct things of value, like: life, blood, music, words, something created out of silence and flowing, moving through to keep things, me, other people, alive. A receptacle: receptive, open, transporting, watery, fluid, flowing.

Then I remember I have written a poem called ‘Vessel’ many moons ago.

Only yesterday, I went through all my poetry files and created a receptacle for them, something I have been trying to get to for too long.

The placeholder, entitled ‘Poetry Working Files’, is now set up in the Scrivener writing software space, ready to be filled. Elsewhere, I have all the files organised in alphabetical order by poem. It’s a small but powerful thing now to transfer them in as a body of work. From there, I can conduct magic with them. I know where they are, where they’ve been, how I can combine them, coalesce, revise, add to, edit and seek to publish them, if I so choose.

It’s a receptacle now, an empty vessel right now, but one easily filled with the richness of years. Receptacle, coming from the Latin – ‘recipere’ – to give back, receive, be receptive. I now have a place to receive, and give back. I have a place for poetry’s heart; even if it’s only on my computer, it’s a start.

Vessel – the poem

‘Vessel’ is actually a poem I love, previously published in a writing anthology, Writers at the Raglan. I don’t know where the title came from. The titles of my poems are often a word or phrase that just arrives capturing something more than I know. Sometimes arriving in the dead of night.

 

Vessel

Your hands are all encompassing
in their imminence,
but maybe you are simply
too large.

And I, the virgin field
of your imagining,
dressed in white
for your uncovering,
feel the widening flaws
expose the cotton armour
of my longing.

Will the hard rubbing
of your words
make me shine
above the clouds
I manufacture
in silence
without you.

The poem captures the feeling of being an empty vessel, waiting for another’s blessing, being alone and feeling vulnerable. There’s abrasion, exposure, a waiting to be filled.

It’s from a long time ago when I used to spend a lot of time waiting for others, waiting to be blessed, ordained, consecrated, to be made pure, to be approved of. It’s not a practice I engage in so much now, if at all, but it’s good to be reminded of the risks through these words penned from another time.

Preparing for transition

So I am now preparing this vessel again, this space to fill with words, receptive and ready to transport and be transported. I think of the imagery of the Six of Swords, the journey across the open water into the unknown and the card I used to symbolise the start of the Quiet Writing journey. It’s a message of surrender, but a soulful surrender, creating a vacancy for the new, for what is to come.

six of swords fountain tarot

 

It’s a watery journey, and there’s spirit involved, fire as well – all the elements coming into play, as I ground myself as a channel for what comes next. The destination is open-ended with an out-stretched sky, but a faint horizon to anchor me, there in the distance.

There’s receiving and giving – being open-hearted, flowing, dressed in white perhaps but not feeling quite so vulnerable. My own skin is now something I am much more used to and happy to be sitting within. The lifeblood of poetry is coursing through again and taking me to new places with the heart of the old whispering guidance.

I’ve learnt you need to listen and watch for signposts that quietly show the path: like two white feathers and a shy rainbow one day recently. And words that arrive in the night. Like the single word ‘vessel’ that started this piece and the train of connection to form a message winging its way through the dark to inspire a circle of light.

Thought pieces

For more on Introverted Intuition, one of the eight personality functions, this article is a great introduction. A key thought:

The powerful means by which Introverted Intuition reveals its solution are associated with a gut sense of conviction and certainty. INJs “know” at a deep intuitive level that it is correct. But they cannot stop there. Once they have received the intuition, they must work to flesh it out. They must articulate and illustrate it in order to render it accessible and useful to others.

Hence this article!

I would love to hear your thoughts on Introverted Intuition and creativity. Jung has described the Introverted Intuitive as one of the most difficult of the types to understand, one that has elements of mystery.

So I encourage your comments on this as we explore writing with spirit here. Please share in the comments below or on the Quiet Writing Facebook page.

Keep in touch

Quiet Writing is now on Facebook so please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on creativity, productivity, writing, voice, intuition, introversion, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), tarot and yes, passion!

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017 – including MBTI developments and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

2 Comments

PRIVACY POLICY

Privacy Policy

COOKIE POLICY

Cookie Policy