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coaching personality and story

Learned Wisdom: Journeys in Type and Transition

April 19, 2019

learned wisdom

I’ve been so thrilled to attend and present at the British Association for Psychological Type (BAPT) Conference in Milton Keynes in the UK last week.⁣⠀

⁣The theme of the conference was ‘Pearls of Wisdom’, celebrating BAPT’s 30th anniversary. A perfect theme for me to engage with.

When I knew I would be heading over to attend, I was very drawn to submit to present. I developed up a submission to present a session on ‘Learned Wisdom: Journeys in Type and Transition‘. And I was so excited when my submission was accepted.⁣⠀

Learned Wisdom + stepping up in my professional practice

Here’s what I spoke about and shared:⁣⠀

  • how having a framework including psychological type can help us positively manage times of transition and major change.⁣⠀
  • my learned wisdom, using myself as a case study, reflecting on the last few years of transitioning to self-employment as a life coach and psychological type practitioner⁣⠀
  • a model I created for managing transition with psychological type, body of work and self-leadership as key aspects.⁣⠀
  • a practical way to apply this model to personally and professionally negotiate major transitions.

learned wisdom

The experience of sharing learned wisdom

I spent many hours drawing together my personal and professional experiences and learning, and crafting and trialling the presentation in Sydney. Following my presentation, I was honoured to receive very positive feedback about the insights gained from my presentation. This was from attendees with many years of psychological type experience. ⁣⠀

Sometimes we wonder about all the hours we put into something like this. But for me, this was such valuable work in so many ways.

Firstly, I stopped to pull together the story of my transition over the past 2 plus years in a very deep way. Then I put it into a ‘learned wisdom’ framework, a model, that incorporated a number of aspects:

  • definitions of learned wisdom
  • looking at transition and change and the differences between them
  • reviewing my personal journey as a case study
  • creating a model for others to use personally and professionally with three key elements: body of work, personality type and self-leadership
  • situating this within a personal transition framework.

And in all of this, I stepped up into my work in new ways as a speaker and a personality type practitioner. This was in the context of presenting to a highly skilled and experienced group of type professionals. It was the kind of pressure that makes us grow and stretch in new ways and realise what we have learned. It’s the kind of pressure too we often wonder about putting ourselves under! But I am so pleased I did. I focused on being a contributor, not a guru – as Denise Duffield Thomas encourages us. With this mindset shift, I’ve gained confidence and learned tips to help with similar experiences in the future. I look forward to sharing this learning with you too.

Reflections on sharing learned wisdom further

I’m reflecting further on the process and experience in line with my INTJ type preference! I know that I have a body of work to share in many ways, via coaching, writing and social media. I am:

➡️ creating a Learned Wisdom mini-course where I take you through how type can be a support during times of transition and  look at your type transition compass.

➡️ sharing the information via Sacred Creative Collective group coaching and Personality Type coaching, where I support people to identify their best-fit type and learn about personality preferences.⁣⠀

➡️ sharing about the experience of stepping up in new ways in our work in the world including pushing through the upper limit problem we often impose on ourselves.

➡️ sharing the learning in different ways via blog posts and social media

Next steps in learned wisdom

So look forward to more instalments about Learned Wisdom. And check out Personality Stories Coaching via the link in my profile for more information. I welcome any questions or suggestions you might have!

learned wisdom

Quiet Writing is on Facebook  Instagram and Twitter so keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

You might also enjoy:

Personality Stories

How I fulfilled my vision to become a Personality Type Coach

Never too old – finding courage and skill to empower your dreams

Life Coaching – making meaning in times of transition

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

Personality skills including how to be the best you can be as an introvert in recruitment 

Being a vessel – or working with introverted intuition

intuition personality and story

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

October 13, 2017

Intuition is a powerful tool and a strong practice from both an introverted and extraverted perspective. Read more to understand how to work your intuition.

intuition practice

In my personality work, I’m interested in promoting balance, wholeness and acceptance of others. It’s great to understand our own type. It’s also valuable to learn from other preferences to be more well-rounded and respect other ways of operating.

In terms of cognitive processing, there is both Introverted and extraverted intuition. Both modes can help make intuition a strong practice. But understanding and deploying the strengths of both can provide access to new ways of working and interacting.

Intuitive is one of the five Core Desired Feelings that underpin Quiet Writing and its focus. The five feelings are:

connected, creative, flowing, intuitive, poetic

Intuition is a way of absorbing information and accessing wisdom I value immensely. I’ve worked on it over the years and especially this past year through tarot and oracle work on a daily basis.  So it’s fascinating to deep dive into Intuition from both an Introverted and Extraverted point of view and learn more about the strengths of both.

Personality as story

Personality is a story, a life story, that can help us to weave and find our way in the world. It provides a framework that helps us understand our dominant preferences or gifts, why we love what we love and how we can work these gifts to shine brighter.

As well, it can provide an insight into the less developed aspects of our personality that we might illuminate to feel more whole. It can also help us to understand individual differences in orientations and why other people such as our partners and work colleagues may operate so differently to us in some ways. 

As an INTJ type, Introverted Intuition is my dominant cognitive processing preference. So the more introverted ways of interacting with intuition and the world are very familiar to me. But I wanted to understand this way of operating more. It’s certainly taken me time to really trust and learn from it. Becoming certified in personality type assessment based on Jungian theory has enabled me to dive more deeply into the way it works. I’ve also been interested to learn about other ways of working with intuition such as those who rely on Extraverted Intuition as a preference.

Jungian personality frameworks

Where does Intuition fit into the landscape of personality? Here’s a snapshot view of Jungian personality frameworks. Carl Jung’s theory of personality identifies eight functions – four Perceiving functions and four Judging functions. The functions are used differently depending on whether they are expressed in the internal world or the external world.

The summary below is based on Mary McGuiness’s excellent book ’You’ve Got Personality’ including her keywords for the functions.

The four Perceiving functions are:

Extraverted Sensing – abbreviated as Se – Sensory Experience

Introverted Sensing – Si – Sensory Memory

Extraverted Intuition – Ne – Exploring possibilities

Introverted Intuition – Ni – Visionary insight

The four Judging functions are:

Extraverted Thinking – Te – Logical outcomes

Introverted Thinking – Ti – Internal analysis

Extraverted Feeling – Fe – Harmonizing people

Introverted Feeling – Fi – Universal values

Further work by Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs based on Jung’s work added the fourth dimension – Judging and Perceiving. From this, the four pairs of preferences were developed that are the basis of the 16 x four-letter type references such as INTP, ESFJ. They are the preferences from the pairs of:

Extraversion vs Introversion (E/I)

Sensing vs Intuition (S/N)

Thinking vs Feeling (T/F)

Judging vs Perceiving (J/P)

Each type has a Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior function, dynamic frameworks within which our personality plays out which are points of orientation.

In terms of the eight Jungian functions, people are able to develop all but some are more instinctive for each type. Understanding your type and preferred functions helps you make sense of the way you perceive and organise the world, internally and externally.

Introverted and Extraverted Intuition

The personality types that rely on intuition as a strong suit are:

Introverted Intuition: INTJ & INFJ (dominant), ENTJ & ENFJ (auxiliary)

Extraverted Intuition: ENTP & ENFP (dominant), INFP & INTP (auxiliary)

In a video interview, Jung defines Introverted Intuition as “a perception by ways or means of the unconscious.”

In his 1921 book, Psychological Types, Jung explains the main characteristics of the Extraverted Intuitive function as:

…always present where possibilities exist…his eye is constantly ranging for new possibilities…

The Introverted Intuitive focus is visionary and insightful. Extraverted Intuitive cognitive processes focus on what could be, especially from an improvement perspective. The main difference is how interaction with the world occurs as a source of intuition. The Introverted Intuitive works via the inner world or unconscious in visionary and symbolic ways. The Extraverted Intuitive prefers interaction and a wide scope of external sources to maximise input.

It’s fascinating to deep dive into Intuition from both an Introverted and Extraverted point of view as quite different ways of interacting around intuition. There is much you can learn from your less natural preferences to make intuition a strong practice in your life.

You might rely on sensing and what’s right in front of you more, so intuition is a great way to take in information differently especially around seeing beyond what is. If you’re extraverted, you could try to learn from or observe more introverted intuition strategies. Where you are mainly introverted in orientation, practice more extraverted intuitive approaches to open up avenues of input from interaction and wider sources.

They may not be comfortable options initially. But taking ourselves outside our comfort zones can mean we are stretching and growing in new ways. Knowing more about the different cognitive processes means you can better understand how you and others operate.

Learn more about Introverted and Extraverted Intuition

To learn more about Introverted and Extraverted Intuition, head to these links. One focuses on Introverted Intuition and the other on Extraverted Intuition:

Introverted Intuition: Learning from its Mysteries

Extraverted Intuition: Imagining the Possibilities.

To make intuition a strong practice, it’s worthwhile to review the different modes of cognitive processing. I hope you enjoy reading and comparing these two different ways in which intuition plays out in the world.

Exploring your personality type with a coach or person with certification in the area can help you work through the rich detail. This helps you know how to apply this valuable knowledge in a practical and enduring way.

Personality, story and life coaching

I’m loving exploring personality and story in the context of life coaching. Working with clients now, it’s amazing how personality type weaves its way into the conversation. With my training and professional background, it’s something I bring to life coaching quietly or overtly. I love the framework for personal growth it provides.

Understanding our personality is a key to gaining insight into our story and working with our gifts. It’s a way of knowing what we can develop to be more wholehearted, calling on our less developed preferences.

As Isabel Briggs Myers has said:

It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences.

Personality is a story you write with the natural preferences you have.

You can find out more here about my Personality Stories Coaching package. It includes helping you to identify your best-fit personality type via the Majors Personality InventoryTM  and working through a fabulous self-paced online course to understand your preferences. You also have a 90 minute coaching deep-dive with me on your personality type and how to work with this information in your life. Plus you receive other resources to help you on this life-long journey.

Head on over and read my posts on Extraverted Intuition and Introverted Intuition. The posts taken together can help you make intuition a strong practice from an introverted and extraverted perspective. I hope these posts can help pull the threads together so you can more strongly write your personality story.

Happy reading and welcome any questions and thoughts on personality, story and Intuition.

persona

Keep in touch

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Quiet Writing is on Instagram and Facebook here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on self-leadership, tarot, intuition, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality.

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

You might also enjoy:

Work with Me

Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

Overwhelm, intuition and thinking

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

Music, intuition and messages of songs

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

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 my book Wholehearted and the accompanying Companion Workbook now. 

Available worldwide in ebook and paperback from online retailers.

Links to purchase here: https://books2read.com/b/wholehearted

Join my mailing list and receive your free Chapter 1 of Wholehearted.

Book your Self-leadership Discovery Call with Terri here.

Wholehearted self-leadership book
creativity inspiration & influence personality and story

Creative and Connected #4 – the wholehearted edition

July 7, 2017

 

wholehearted

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected and an exciting wholehearted Quiet Writing guest posting opportunity!

Here’s a round up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms with a focus this week on being wholehearted in life and creativity.

One of the core concepts behind Quiet Writing is being wholehearted and having the self-leadership to connect with others and feel integrated within ourselves to achieve our creative goals.

This week, Creative and Connected explores this theme:

What is wholehearted? Why is it important? What are the factors in having a great life? How can we bring our whole selves to our careers and creative practices?

And there’s a special opportunity for you to share ‘Your Wholehearted Story’ on Quiet Writing! Yes, I’m putting out a call for for guest bloggers – I’m looking for some special people to write for Quiet Writing about what being wholehearted means to you. More on this below but I’m very excited to be opening Quiet Writing up to our collective voices so we can share the living of a whole, creative and connected life in support of each other.

Podcasts on wholehearted living

The 3 Most Important Factors for Having a Great Life with Jonathan Fields

Jonathan Fields is a leader in helping people create meaningful, connected and happy lives. In this interview on Melyssa Griffin’s Pursuit with Purpose podcast, he shares his work across different careers including shifting from law into different directions that were more in line with his heart and what he wanted in life.

Key points for me were:

  • Jonathan’s core set of questions and metrics to consider when making a life change
  • The three areas of your life that determine whether or not you’ll have a fulfilled, happy life: connection, contribution and vitality – and suggestions for how to achieve these.

Elizabeth Dialto on The Wild Soul Woman

This fabulous podcast chat between Julie Parker and Elizabeth Dialto on The Priestess Podcast was so much fun. Elizabeth is the founder of Wild Soul Movement, author of Untame Yourself, and host of the popular Untame The Wild Soul Woman podcast.

This conversation is about how the Divine Feminine can mean all manner of things for women in being untamed including embracing less traditionally female archetypes. The podcast also explores some of the traditional roles that women play that can keep us in people pleasing mode and not embracing our fuller, wilder, more assertive soul within. Super enjoyable and an invitation to wholehearted divine feminine living!

Books and reading notes

Reading wise this week I started Tracy Chevalier’s At the Edge of the Orchard about a dysfunctional family of apple-growers in 19th century America.

Tracy Chevalier is a favourite author of mine. Her specialty is historical fiction and she has a wonderful way of taking a historical story and building on it with a fictional narrative. She is especially strong on creating a sense of place. ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ is probably her most famous book but my favourite is ‘Remarkable Creatures’ set in Lyme Regis in Dorset and based on the real life story of pioneering fossil hunter, Mary Anning.

Tracy Chevalier announced on Twitter this week that Remarkable Creatures is currently being made into a movie.

This is so exciting! When I read Remarkable Creatures it just begged to be made into a movie – it’s so evocative and visual and such a fabulous story. Plus if you love Lyme Regis, Dorset and fossils as I do, it’s just pure heaven. It’s a story of discovery, self-belief and strength, especially of female strength and courage, in the face of opposition.

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

There have been some interesting blog posts on wholehearted living, being clear, moving through and understanding your personality type and its influence recently:

The only 3 things you need to live a good life explains Jonathan Field’s concept of how the joy of living can be seen in terms of three simple buckets: connection, contribution, and vitality. It’s easy to focus on and check in with, clear and remarkably helpful.

In Why your introversion doesn’t dictate your career path over on The Introvert Effect, Rebecca McFarland explains how being an introvert doesn’t limit you with your career paths and ways of working. You just need to learn to work it differently. Rebecca shares some fabulous tips for managing career and roles outside your comfortable energy zone.

In a great post on The Leadership Styles of Every Myers-Briggs® Personality Type, Susan Storm explores each MBTI type around the strengths and weaknesses of its unique leadership style. The key message?

Any type can be a leader, but every type is going to do it a little bit differently.

Insightful, thorough and grounded in practical experience, it’s a valuable reference for understanding leadership and personality type.

A post that spoke to me deeply this week was Nicole Cody’s Small Steps and a Pep Talk for Hard Days. It seems I’m not alone in finding this year to be a challenging one. Sometimes it’s hard to see that we are making progress. This post is a great reminder to pause and reflect on how far we’ve come. This is also a theme that popped up for me this week in my Tarot Narrative intuitive messages.

My own post on 10 Amazing Life Lessons from Swimming in the Sea was also really positively received in all sorts of ways which was so heartening. I loved writing this post on the many things that swimming in the sea has taught me this year. It’s been such a valuable learning experience in exercise, connection with community and feeling more whole through vitality and being coached by inspirational fit women buddies, Jeanette Buchanan and Samantha Wheatley.

sea swimming

An invitation to guest post on Quiet Writing on ‘My Wholehearted Story’

And now to an exciting opportunity to guest post on Quiet Writing!

Quiet Writing celebrates wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity.

But what does wholehearted mean to me – and you?

It’s a word I found coming out of my mouth in a negative sense firstly. About a year ago, I found myself saying, “I am just not feeling wholehearted any more.” And this sense started a deep search and a time of transition to a more wholehearted way of creating and living that is expressing itself in many ways. This is through Quiet Writing here, in my writing, in learning to be a Life Coach, in becoming certified in personality type assessment and in working more with intuitive tools such as tarot and oracle. And it’s also expressed in my developing work in coaching to support others who want to feel more creative and connected. And I am so loving all of this!

In the early stages of this transition journey, I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast “Who gets to decide if you’re a legitimate artist?‘ with poet, teacher, storyteller and artist, Mark Nepo. In discussing how to help Cecilia, a poet who has become marooned with writing because of not feeling good enough, being rejected and not being able to get into an MFA program, Mark offers her the word ‘wholehearted’ as advice and reads his beautiful poem:

Breaking Surface

Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won’t let one life be enough,
no lover who measures their worth
by what you might give up,
no voice that tells you in the night
it can’t be done.

Let nothing dissuade you
from seeing what you see
or feeling the winds that make you
want to dance alone
or go where no one
has yet to go.

You are the only explorer.
Your heart, the unreadable compass.
Your soul, the shore of a promise
too great to be ignored.

I listened to Mark reading this poem on the podcast again today and cried (again). It touches me so deeply and is what Quiet Writing is all about: letting no one keep us from our journey and being the creative explorer of our hearts.

So I’ve decided it’s time to hear more voices around wholehearted living and what it means to us here at Quiet Writing.

I am offering you the opportunity to consider guest posting here at Quiet Writing on ‘My Wholehearted Story’. Initially, I have six places on offer for 2017 – one per month to be featured here so that we can learn from each others’ journeys of the heart in this space.

I am hoping that we can also consider a regular or one-off publication or online magazine as well. I feel that there is a wealth of wholehearted stories to tap into to support us all, as source that we can add to and connect with over time.

wholehearted

What is ‘My Wholehearted Story’?

So here’s a summary of what I am thinking and what I am looking for:

What is wholehearted?

  • bringing your whole self to career and creative practice
  • not leaving parts of you, especially the creative, poetic, spiritual aspects, at the door, any door
  • being whole, being authentic, being light, being present
  • self-care and care of and connection with others
  • yin and yang, dark and light, strength and weakness, shadow explorations
  • living our unique passions, gifts and influences
  • being our body of work in the world

How does it connect with Quiet Writing?

Quiet Writing focuses on the core values of being

creative, intuitive, flowing, poetic and connected

It’s about the strength that comes from working steadily without fanfare in writing and other spheres to coalesce, create, influence and connect. And it’s about honouring the process as much as the product; the being, becoming and journey, as much as the arrival. It’s about the artistry behind closed doors and how it merges and weaves into that of everyday life.

This beautiful quote, from Irene Claremont de Castillejo, in the frontispiece to The Heart Aroused by David Whyte captures the feeling for me around this more soulful kind of living:

Only a few achieve the colossal task of holding together, without being split asunder, the clarity of their vision alongside an ability to take their place in a materialistic world. They are the modern heroes….Artists at least have a form within which they can hold their own conflicting opposites together. But there are some who have no recognised artistic form to serve this purpose, they are the artists of the living. To my mind these last are the supreme heroes in our soulless society.”

What might you write about?

I’m interested in the ways that you have strived to build all or any of these values – creative, flowing, intuitive, poetic and connected – into living more wholeheartedly. And how you have worked and written and created quietly to make this happen, behind the scenes, as a form of the art of the living.

I’m interested in guest blog posts and writing around these types of questions:

  • What makes you feel wholehearted and what does it mean to you?
  • What have your learnings been about being whole in heart and mind?
  • What tools, tips, practices, do you have for others?
  • Which intuitive tools, exercise, learning, skills or courses have made a significant difference for you?
  • How have you worked your strengths and weaknesses to blend and find wholeness?
  • What have been the challenges, the shadow journeys and how have you overcome them?
  • What fears have you faced and wrangled on the way and what have you learnt from this?
  • Which passions and loves come together to make you feel whole?
  • What have been the features of connecting to feeling more whole: rhythms, women’s voices, cycles, the journeys of others?
  • What have been your key influences: which book or other inspiration helped make sense of all this for you?
  • What aspects of your identity or personality journey have you worked through eg introversion, extraversion, understanding of your personality/MBTI type, your artistic or poetic self?
  • Which critical learnings about an aspect of your personality made all the difference in feeling whole and comfortable in your uniqueness?
  • What symbols, archetypes or natural cycles work for you and how do you work with them?
  • How have you practised self-leadership to feel more wholehearted?

As you can see, there are so many ways of looking at this concept of wholeheartedness and what makes us sing and be able to do our unique work in the world. I’d love to hear your story!

You would need to contribute:

  • a 2000 word (maximum) blog post draft to me a week in advance of an agreed date for publication
  • any suggested accompanying images and photos that you would like to include
  • a bio and accompanying photo

What are the benefits?

The benefits for you are:

  • being featured as a creative and connected voice in the Quiet Writing community
  • the opportunity to share your work, business, writing and learning
  • the opportunity to flex your writing muscles in new ways
  • the chance to reflect on your journey and experience in being wholehearted and share this
  • increased connection with like-minded others
  • the possibility of inclusion in a regular or one-off online publication if there is sufficient interest

The benefits for the Quiet Writing community are:

  • our voices coming together to celebrate being creative, flowing, intuitive, poetic and connected
  • sharing journeys to living more wholeheartedly so we can help each other to shine
  • feeling more connected with a community of like-minded people around creative living and blending this with career and other aspects of life
  • the opportunity for publishing as a collective of voices to help inspire others in wholehearted creative living

If you’re interested?

Initially, I have six guest blogging spots available for each remaining month of 2017. But I’m hoping that the response will be such that we can consider an ongoing ‘My Wholehearted Story’ feature each month or more regularly as well other ways to showcase our stories together.

If you are interested in one of these initial guest blogging spots, please contact me as soon as possible at terri@quietwriting.com with your immediate thoughts on what you would like to focus on for your piece.

I’ll provide more details on specifics following this but I’d love your initial thoughts and a sense of response.

Or feel free to provide any thoughts on the concept of ‘My Wholehearted Story’ in the comments or via email. I’d love to hear your thoughts and can’t wait to receive your responses!

wholehearted

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday – previous posts below. I hope you enjoy it. I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too.

Have a fabulous creative weekend!

Underwater swimming image via pexels.com

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 ebook 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 tarot, intuition, influence, passion, 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.

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6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

Creative and Connected #3 – on self-care

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Personality, story and Introverted Intuition

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

coaching intuition personality and story

Personality, story and Introverted Intuition

June 19, 2017

Knowing your personality type is a way to explore your deeper story. Here’s a brief overview of personality and Introverted Intuition as a starting point.

personality

As an INTJ Jung/Myers-Briggs type, Introverted Intuition is my dominant function and preference. I wrote about this function recently on a guest post on Life Reaction.

It’s certainly a mysterious one though and it’s taken me time to really trust and learn from it. Becoming certified in personality type assessment via the Majors Personality Type InventoryTM  based on Jung/Myers-Briggs theory has enabled me to dive more deeply into the way it works. 

This training has helped me to understand that personality is a story, a life story, that can help us to weave and find our way in the world. It provides a framework that helps us understand our dominant preferences or gifts, why we love what we love and how we can work these gifts to shine brighter.

As well, it can provide an insight into the less developed aspects of our personality that we might illuminate to feel more whole. It can also help us to understand individual differences in orientations and why other people such as our partners and work colleagues may operate so differently to us in some ways. 

The landscape of personality

So where does ‘Introverted Intuition’ fit into the landscape of personality?

It’s a deep and complex topic but here’s a brief overview. I look forward to continuing to explore these areas of personality in future posts here and elsewhere including in my coaching interactions.

For context, The Myers and Briggs Foundation provides the following key advice:

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives.  The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

Carl Jung’s theory of personality identified eight functions – four are Perceiving functions and four are Judging functions. The functions are used differently depending on whether they are expressed in the internal world or the external world.

The summary overview below is based on Mary McGuiness’s excellent book ’You’ve Got Personality’ including her keywords for the functions.

The four Perceiving functions are:

Extraverted Sensing – abbreviated as Se – Sensory Experience

Introverted Sensing – Si – Sensory Memory

Extraverted Intuition – Ne – Exploring possibilities

Introverted Intuition – Ni – Visionary insight

The four Judging functions are:

Extraverted Thinking – Te – Logical outcomes

Introverted Thinking – Ti – Internal analysis

Extraverted Feeling – Fe – Harmonizing people

Introverted Feeling – Fi – Universal values

Further work by Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs based on Jung’s work added the fourth dimension into the picture – Judging and Perceiving. From this work, the four pairs of preferences were developed that form the basis of the 16 x four letter MBTI® type references we know today:

Extraversion vs Introversion (E/I)

Sensing vs Intuition (S/N)

Thinking vs Feeling (T/F)

Judging vs Perceiving (J/P)

Each type has a Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior function and these are dynamic frameworks within which our personality plays out and which we can use as points of orientation.

For my type, INTJ (Introverted, Intuition, Thinking, Judging), for example, Intuition is introverted and Thinking is extraverted. As I and other people of my type prefer introversion (I), Intuition is the Dominant function and Thinking is the Auxiliary function. INTJ types typically use Intuition to make sense of the world from an inner, reflective and symbolic perspective and use Thinking (logic) in the outer world to organise, frame and structure things.

In terms of the eight Jungian functions, people are able to develop all but some are more instinctive for each type than others. Understanding your type and your preferred functions helps you make sense of the way you perceive and organise the world, internally and externally.

You can read more personality basics here.

Personality types and functions

So what does all this mean for understanding Introverted Intuition and whether it applies to you?

As I say in the Life Reaction article:

If you identify as an INTJ or INFJ (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®) personality type, Introverted Intuition is typically your dominant function; if you identify as an ENTJ or ENFJ, it’s your auxiliary function; for ISFP and ISTP types, it’s the tertiary function and for ESFP and ESTP types, it’s the inferior function. It plays out in a lesser way for other types. You can read more here. And if you don’t know your type, it’s not a huge issue; if the words ‘Introverted Intuition’ speak to you, chances are they are natural preferences for you or areas on your radar for development.

So if you don’t know about personality types or know your type, trust your intuition and if it feels like something you’d like to know more about, read the article!

If you do know your personality type and you’re not sure how the functions work in terms of your type, Angelina Bennet has a fabulous analogy in ‘Shadows of Type’. She describes them in terms of a car analogy: the dominant function is the driver of the car; the auxiliary function is the passenger in the front helping with navigation; the tertiary function is the teenager in the back; and the inferior function is like the baby in the car seat occasionally screaming for attention especially from the driver!

So Introverted Intuition, for example, could be playing out in all sort of ways in your personality and life even if it’s not the dominant piece, just as all functions in your particular type have the potential to do.

A deeper dive into your personality type with a coach or person with certification in the area can help you work through the rich detail. This helps you know how to apply this valuable knowledge in a practical way.

Personality, story and life coaching

I’m loving exploring personality and story in the context of life coaching. Working with pro bono clients now, it’s amazing how personality type weaves its way into the conversation implicitly or explicitly.

With my training and professional background, it’s something I can bring to life coaching quietly or overtly. I love the framework for personal growth it provides.

Understanding our personality is a key to gaining insight into our story and working with our gifts. It’s a way of knowing what we can develop to be more wholehearted, calling on our less developed preferences.

Knowing your personality type is a way to find your deeper story.  It’s a fascinating journey to go deeper into its threads and mysteries.

And as Isabel Briggs Myers has said:

It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences.

So personality is a story you write with the natural preferences you have been given.

I’m developing my personality offerings including identifying your type via the Majors Personality InventoryTM, and linking them with my Life Coaching offerings, so sign up to Quiet Writing via email to keep informed.

But for starters, head on over to Life Reaction and read about how Introverted Intuition has helped me pull the threads together and write my personality story.

Happy reading and welcome any questions and thoughts on personality, story and Introverted Intuition.

persona

Thought pieces

As well as my Life Reaction piece, you can read more about the fascinating world of Introverted Intuition here:

Introverted Intuition (Ni) – Dr A J Drenth (Personality Junkie)

The Magic and Mystery of Introverted Intuition – Susan Storm (Psychology Junkie)

Introverted Intuiting (Ni) Explained – Michael T Robinson (Career Planner)

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

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Being a vessel or working with introverted intuition

Overwhelm, intuition and thinking

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

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

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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

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.

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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

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