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A while ago, I mentioned something in a newsletter that a reader asked me to elaborate on.
In this newsletter, I said:
In order to grow into the person I was truly meant to be, I had to face certain truths inside myself first.
The reader who asked for elaboration wanted me to get specific about this “truth” I had to face.
What was it?
How did I deal with it once I faced it?
Would I be willing to share more?
This is the truth I had to face:
Keeping everyone else happy with me was more important than keeping myself happy.
My conscious goal was to create the life I wanted.
My unconscious goal was to give everyone else what they wanted.
I was refusing to face this level of contradiction within myself because it was too scary to let go of the old approval-seeking paradigm, and so hitting my goals never happened.
This was a really hard truth for me to swallow about myself.
For so long, I had believed I was doing all that I could to manifest what I wanted, pursue my dreams, and create the life I wanted to live.
Yeah…not really.
Basically, I was talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
Because every time someone showed up in my orbit and needed anything, I immediately dropped my needs and put everything on hold to meet their needs.
And I did this completely unconsciously.
If I shifted away from this constant accommodation of others, I started to feel panicky and anxious inside.
Again, unconsciously.
So, I didn’t really understand what I was doing, why I was doing it, or why I was feeling the way I was feeling.
Or why I kept hitting blocks in my life and the things I wanted for myself still felt so far out of reach.
This is a common experience for many INFJs.
What’s also common is that we get by with this strategy, until right around mid-life, or late life for some of us.
At that point, something in us starts yelling, “Enough!”
Sometimes it’s the body (various ailments and various pains).
Sometimes it’s the mind (generalized anxiety and depression).
This is something I invite you to look at today within yourself.
It’s not going to feel easy.
But if you’re struggling to move forward with what you really want in life, then it needs to be done.
Right now, in this moment, ask yourself:
Is keeping everyone else happy with me more important than keeping myself happy?
Be honest.
And:
What’s more important: creating the life you want? Or giving everyone else what they want?
Again, be honest.
Your real, intuitive answer will come immediately.
You’ll feel it somewhere.
You’ll get an insistent nudge.
Then the mind will take over and start rationalizing.
That’s okay, as long as you see what’s happening there. Because whenever we name a hard-to-face truth within ourselves, we can almost guarantee the mind will follow it up with rationalizations about why it has to be that way and no other options are possible.
That’s fear talking.
This is one of the core concepts we’ll be working with in my new class, Finding Your True Self in Mid to Late Life for INFJs.
As I said above, this was part of my truth:
I was refusing to face this level of contradiction within myself because it was too scary to let go of the old approval-seeking paradigm, and so hitting my goals never happened.
What I want to know now is:
What level of contradiction within yourself are you holding onto because it’s too scary to let go of your old way of being?
Even if you decide not to join this class, this is an important question to sit with.
It might be the most important question you ask yourself in the next few years.
Because, in the new world we’re entering now, whatever old false identity you’ve been clinging to, just for the sake of getting along, isn’t going to work anymore.
In fact, that old false identity is going to unravel and dissolve very quickly, and you’ll need to find a different way to navigate forward in life.
It will be easiest if you start doing the work of telling the truth to yourself now.
This is also another concept we’ll be working with in this new class: “becoming a truth-teller for yourself.”
If you’d like to join us as we go through this process together and start to get a handle on our own real, deep truth and what we need to know and do with that truth, then we would love to have you.
You can find the details on this class and register here:
FINDING YOUR TRUE SELF IN MID TO LATE LIFE FOR INFJS
This class is from 4:00 – 6:00 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 1, April 8, and April 15. All class sessions will be recorded and all registrants will receive a link to the recording 24 hours after the event.
Any other questions, reply to this email.
Lauren
P.S.
One of the students in this class has a sharp eye and caught a typo on the registration page. An “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) session is mentioned on that page, although I wasn’t planning on doing one for this class. However, after this student asked me about it, I felt like the Universe was giving me a nudge to include one. I absolutely love doing these, they are so much fun, and so I got excited to include one kind-of-last-minute.
Soooo…now this class includes an Ask Me Anything session with Lauren, on Friday April 10 at 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern Time.
So if you’re joining this class, send me questions for the AMA!
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