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When a highly sensitive man feels left behind (INFJ / INFP) · Lightbearer's Library

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, dear soul.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a man who thinks of himself as a late bloomer, someone who perhaps if you're young or old can think of yourself as perhaps behind other people your age.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know that we are necessarily late in any way.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we've just been spending years trying to figure out how to be ourselves in a world that seems to have a structure that we don't quite fit into, and has little little space or room for who we naturally are as highly sensitive people, as INFJs or INFPs, whatever, whatever label we want to put on that, that sort of, you know, otherness, otherness that we carry around with us.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been thinking about this lately because I've spoken to a lot of men in the men's sanctuary, in the men's groups, as well as in the comments and the lives, that there are men in their 20s, 30s, 40s that feel like they've that they've fallen behind, that they haven't found the the career, the relationship, the something that everyone else seems to have found around them.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it can feel like we're a little lost.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's been me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in my early 40s, and I've just had none of those things that it conventionally maybe my peers have found.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of has left me feeling, is there something wrong with me?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or all the questions.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get into a little bit more of that.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's also the men who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s who did find those things perhaps.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a career, they had a family, they had kids, they raised them, and they did all the things that they thought they were supposed to do.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think it's interesting because both of these groups, I I feel like there's this underlying thing, the question or or wondering about who am I?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: This question of, you know, how do I, how do I be myself in this world?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of what I've been thinking about is that we we were born into this world, perhaps as I believe we're all unique souls.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we we're born into this world where if we think about personality type, there's all sorts of different personality types, but we have a personality type that is not easily made to fit into the structure of society as it's currently built.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the one where it's like you, you know, you go to school and you meet someone and then you get married and have a house and get kids and like retire, and that's that.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit more nuanced and complicated than that, but you know what I'm saying.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're born into this this world that's like that, but we're not like that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like sometimes it takes us time to understand what the structure is because it's so foreign to us and doesn't make sense.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's there should be more meaning to life than that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's more.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel bigger than that structure.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it takes us time to learn about who we are and how we might fit into that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's maybe where the late, the late blooming part comes in is that we just we take it takes us time to figure out how to fit in, not fit in, but to just figure it all out versus a personality type who is who is more aligned with that that structure that the world takes.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just easy from the get-go.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They can just, you know, go right ahead and and have that life that that it could be quite satisfying and fulfilling for them.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to look at the the two, these two sort of different groupings that I'm seeing in in the comments.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the perhaps the older men, and this can go, you know, it this is not, I'm not trying to to categorize anyone into these, but it's just kind of an observation.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be generational, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and societal, just how we, when we're born in the society that we're in at the moment, it it shapes us.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of like the the older men that maybe learned how to fit in.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: They followed the conventional structure, they were husbands, fathers, providers, professionals.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: From the outside, it looks like you did what you were supposed to do.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps on the inside, in doing so, you left parts of yourself behind.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You covered parts of yourself up that didn't fit in to that structure.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you got good at asking, you know, what does my family need?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: What does my employer need from me?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: What what am I supposed to be?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to to be that to the best of your ability.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's, you know.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: But left less often did you find yourself questioning, you know, who who am I?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think what happens is something something happens in life.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it could be retirement, divorce, for a lot of you, I've heard, empty nest, the the kids leaving, burnout, illness, job loss, or even just you get so exhausted at trying to run run a run run the race of life, trying to be something that maybe you're not.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so just the pure exhaustion makes you have to stop and say, I can't keep living like this.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Something has to change.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this realization perhaps that I don't really know myself.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I've succeeded at the at fitting into the structure of of of the world, the society as it was, you know, as we learned it, but that you lost parts of yourself while doing that.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're at a in a time of finding out who you are and what what it is that you what you want and what you need.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I've spoken to many of you who are in that space, and I think I think it's a it's a wonderful place to be, you know, with no matter what what age, because I think that's the what we're here to do in life, and that's the the goal, as Jung said.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I didn't bring the quote with me, but I read it in the live yesterday.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about Jung and um yeah, he's saying like that's that's the goal of life is to figure out who we are.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to pause here before we go on to the second group and say if the library has become a meaningful place to you and you'd like to help me keep making these journal entries, I would love it if you'd you know, subscribe, like, share the video, and um contribute financially if you can, even just small very small amounts help me and my husband.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um there will be links below.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So in the second, the second grouping, then we've got what I see is again the younger, younger men, although perhaps you're older and you feel like this is where you're at as well.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, these are just kind of broad generalizations.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and these are them the men who have maybe not quite figured out how to how to navigate the the structure and themselves and haven't quite got there yet.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this could be feeling a bit more of like the opposite experience to the first group where haven't, you know, haven't figured out how to do it, how to maybe navigate dating, or haven't found a partner to be with, struggle to find work that is that is aligned with who you are and what you want to bring from your soul, from your heart, and offer to the world.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you watch everyone around you get married, establish careers, buy houses, have children, and kind of perhaps there's a wondering of is there something wrong with me?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like what why why do I feel so?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of words for it, you know, but so alien is the word that comes to me, so like a fish out of water, you know, and I think I think that's kind of what we what we maybe are on this channel, is like we're you know, this the structure of the world is kind of water, and we see all the fishes going around and they're all they're all going about it, and they look like they're happy, and maybe some of them are, maybe some of them aren't, but we're just like the fish that's out of water going, I don't understand how they're how they're swimming, and if we're just kind of flopping around, feeling feeling like I don't get it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we haven't we haven't kind of because I would I would categorize myself in in this space, I I feel like I'm I'm starting to figure things out now, but you know, we haven't abandoned ourselves to fit in.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And but it it creates that sense of separation or isolation from from society, but also ourselves, because we're we're trying to look outward maybe to get the lay of the land for the the missing instruction manual, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: The the did I miss something like along the way?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I and I feel like for me this was growing up with a mom who, you know, if you know the Myers-Briggs personality system, she's an ESTJ.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so her personality type fits perfectly in the structure of the world.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And she she can just swim in it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: How she functions, how she looks at the world, it just it just unfolds, it unfolds.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not that she hasn't struggled in life and has has bumps and like everyone does, that's life.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the way that she functions cognitively is sort of a a an easy puzzle piece to fit into the structure of the world.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I am an INFP and my husband's an INFJ.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So both the puzzle pieces that we are, because I look at each one of us as puzzle pieces.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's one of my metaphors I like to see us as, but it just doesn't seem to fit anywhere.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And but I thought I had to be like my mom.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I needed, I needed to figure out a way to restructure myself to be more like her.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized from understanding the Myers-Briggs personality system and learning to understand who I am and know myself more.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I can never be my mom, you know.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have a different cognitive structure, a different way of looking at the world, a different set of lenses.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, oh, that was really freeing to me to see myself.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think labels can be important to when we're first going on this journey of self-discovery.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like being a highly sensitive person, an HSP, or whether it's autism or ADHD, or you know, there's all these things that can be helpful to go, oh, I'm I'm just naturally different in a way that is not like other people I'm looking at.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of can help us go, oh, it takes the it's like a bit of a relief.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: The tension falls away, and we go, okay, okay.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So now that I know that this is me, and this is different, and I'm not missing an instruction manual, because that brings us back to the instructional manual, we need our own instruction manual.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: We we have a different one, and so we need to learn to read our own instruction manual and figure out what that what that is.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that brings brings both both groups together, the older and the younger is is about, you know, I think the one the first group we talked about says, you know, I did everything I was supposed to do, but now I don't know who I am.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the the second group, the younger group perhaps says, I couldn't do what I was supposed to do, quote unquote.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: These are the quote unquotes.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know where I belong, or I'm not sure how I go about actually doing this life.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So so both groups we end up at the same place that says, you know, I don't really know how to live life as I am, as I was born, as I was created.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the work, the work to be done, the the journey to go on, you know, we don't have to use work, the the the journey, the adventure is about learning to know ourselves, learning to read our own instruction manual.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the the you know, the journey, the hero's journey, if you want to put it that way, or the journey of individuation, or there's lots of lots of different ways of putting this, but it's asking asking questions of ourselves, being curious about who am I, what do I need, what gives me life, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: What drains me?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: What kinds of relationships make me feel alive, make me make me come come alive, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: What kinds of work rem allows me to remain myself, remain true to myself and my values, and and puts all the skills that I've learned to to use in some way?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps what is it that I would like to learn, you know, and going go and get new skills and new information.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: What have I been doing because I genuinely want to?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So taking taking um a what is it called when you take a oh inventory, when you take an inventory of the things that you're doing in your life.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, and then what have I been doing because I thought I was supposed to do?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the kinds of questions that we ask, and and so then we start to to visualize and imagine what life would be like if we were to actually live from that place of knowing who we are and to participate, what would it like be like to participate in the world without abandoning ourselves, you know, and parts of ourselves to fit in.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so self-knowledge is what we are here to do, no matter what our age.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: This can happen at any time where we kind of realize that we need to ask these ourselves these questions and maybe make drastic changes in our lives.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about late blooming, I think this is what we're talking about.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's about how not it's not about the late part, because I think this underneath that term of late blooming, which kind of sets us apart and makes us feel bad about maybe we haven't haven't gotten to places that others, it's it's this, it's actually a celebration that we've gotten to this place of realizing that we need to find a way to bloom as our unique soul selves, finding what we are uniquely here to not even offer the world, but perhaps that's that's something that we we we think about because we we do want to contribute in whatever way that is.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be that, you know, it's like living in the forest and having a little animal sanctuary.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that it has to be what, you know, the structure of society says.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: It it's we find our own path through the forest.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so I think I would love to hear from you about how this, you know, what rang true for you, what resonated with you on your unique journey and where you're at in terms of this thinking, this, you know, fine, you know, late bloom, late blooming, and how it would look like to kind of yeah, know yourself more, or if you've gone through this process of knowing yourself and you've found a way of being content that is in alignment with who you are.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from you.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in the comments, it's such a beautiful way of young and old.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's lots of people in their 20s watching, lots of people in their 60s, and everyone in between.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we share all of our stories, people can start to feel not so alone where in whatever part of the journey they're in.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what the Light Bears Library is.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just I'm so grateful and I'm so honored that you come here and you watch and you leave your stories.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It means the world to me, and I know it means a lot to the men who show up and and read read your comments.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking of connection, we um have been we have been doing some lives on the channel, and it's been absolutely wondrous.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's been filling me up, and it's a way of just coming together as a community, as just people who resonate with this channel, you know, whether you're highly sensitive or, you know, in whatever way, just feeling a bit alienated from that structure of the world.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk about all sorts of things.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: This weekend on Saturday.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what the date is.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's um going to be Saturday, August.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: August, I'm still living in August, Saturday, August 12th at 3 p.m.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Eastern.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about books.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: All sorts of books, whatever fiction, nonfiction.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, bring your, you know, well, we'll I'll have some questions about what kind of books.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I think it's I think we love books around here, and uh so I would love to have a chat.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, I'm wishing you so many blessings.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Signing off for now, XOXO Kate.