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When a highly sensitive man is seen but not known (INFJ / INFP) · Lightbearer's Library

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, dear soul.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had the experience of feeling like a ghost?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this experience happens with a particular person that you feel doesn't really see you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps you have this experience every day.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it happens with friends, family, co-workers.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard from a lot of you in the comments expressing this ghostly feeling.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's obviously an experience that we perhaps all have as humans.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't speak to that, but I know specifically for perhaps highly sensitive men or INFPs, which is what I am, or INFJs, which is what my husband is.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a unique experience or a unique aspect to this.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that there's probably everyone has experienced this in some some way, shape, or form.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we we show up and we are kind to others and we listen and we you know probably participate in life, or or at some point in the past have tried to participate fully and we take on burdens of other people, maybe that are not ours to take on.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we feel like we're we're trying to show up, but it feels like they don't actually end up seeing us for who we are on the inside.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: We talk we've talked about this idea of being an iceberg, that that there's only a small portion of ourselves that others can see.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps, perhaps with different kinds of people, different types, we end up, you know, there's the different types can see more of us above the water, or maybe uh different types can go below the water and see parts of ourselves.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's maybe more what the what I feel like it is, and start to see underneath and and the internal parts of ourselves, the bigness that is inside that is that mass under under the ocean of you know the mass that lives underneath the visible part of the iceberg.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for different types, it's it feels perhaps different.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know in my own experience as an INFP, it's felt like I have all these ideas and values and things that I hold hold dear to my heart, and that that make all make that then my decisions are guided by that I have an internal compass that that helps me navigate the world.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that compass is not always welcome, like the feelings and ideas that I have are perhaps not welcome by others, and so I know this, and I kind of hold that all close to my chest and and become a bit of a smaller person and thus in some ways feel ghostly to family members.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like the more the more I value their their opinion of me, the the the more I kind of hide those parts.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting better now, and now that I'm just I'm releasing all of all of that of caring what what they think, what other people think, and just just trying to to be fully me.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of the journey that we're all on is trying to really trying to really find our our true selves and stand in that place and come to life from that place.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So and then perhaps that you know, I've talked to my INFJ husband about this feeling of of being a ghost.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say here that also I think we're all so unique and individual.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you are an INFP or an INFJ or any any other type, it will be unique and individual to how your own life has unfolded and you know how our childhoods were shaped and molded as as we're nurtured throughout our life, you know.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: But for him, he was talking about feeling, you know, this I this idea of he was specifically giving an example of um we have someone in our lives who's uh a devout Catholic, and when he talks to her, she's an she's an older than him, and you know, they can talk for hours.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she's uh an ESFJ, so she's very much in tune with with the feeling and wanting to make a comfortable experience for for communication and sharing.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, with with Ray's, he wants to get into another person's expect uh uh uh perspective and really can embody that perspective and has such a wonderful time being in conversation with someone who is engaged and is listening.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he feels he feels like that's a happy experience for him, you know.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: He feels there's a sense of um being nourished by that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that that full attention, I think, can really be helpful to to to ourselves in a in a way, but there's the ghostly aspect of that is that she doesn't really have any idea of the iceberg part of of him and wouldn't really understand any of his worldview.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um there's kind of this, he's like, I I I like I'm I'm okay with being a happy ghost in that in that respect.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's something there's something in that that particular experience.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were talking about masking, and he was like, I don't think masking is what INFJs in particular are doing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says they're it's like it it implies that he would be hiding himself, but he's really just embodying the other person's perspective, getting into their their worldview, and um, so it's kind of like the half full, half empty in that particular experience.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I asked, I asked him in particular, maybe you can, you know, in the comments talk to this, speak to this as well.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when did he does he not feel like a ghost?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I said and so he he in particular has listed off some some of his friends in the past.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that for him, because we've we've we've kind of figured out people's personality types of our friends and family, and for him, when he listed those friends off, they were all INFJs or INFPs.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one experience.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for me, I think that could be uh other INFPs.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've only I think I've only ever really met my husband being an INFJ um and ENFPs.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've never I don't know that I've ever met knowingly an ENFJ, so probably that as well.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's probably the the NFs that we kind of have a feeling of being seen by.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not exclusive.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, this is like I'm not trying to put us into boxes.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm just exploring um my own experience and my husband's experience.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps you've had a totally different experience, and I would love to hear about that.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, but we it was like, okay, so how is it different to be seen by each of those types?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for my husband, he's like being with other INFJs is like being experienced from the inside.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he can feel them almost step into his experience because that's what he's kind of doing with with other people, um, whether they recognize it or not.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he can he can recognize that that's what happened, what's happening with another INFJ.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a feeling of maybe perhaps being naked, is what comes to me.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's what he would say.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there it there's it's a much more revealing kind of being being seen by versus when he talked about being with INFPs, there's it's it's um we can see, he says we can see the true self of the INFJ, but that it's there's a there's a bit more privacy.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: INFPs provide a bit more privacy to the INFJ, um, lets them have their experience and um and and doesn't have the ability to to inhabit the other person like an INFJ.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope I hope this has it, you know, uh maybe you can understand that experience without the the if you're not into typology and the Myers Briggs can maybe sense if this if if that's particularly true to you.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: For me, yeah, it's how I don't feel like a ghost is when I can share my values, share my thoughts and ideas without feeling um judged or without feeling stupid or um yeah, when someone just just is really listening and being attentive and asking curious questions.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why for me INFJs are so wonderful, because that's that's exactly what they're doing, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is just being so curious and asking questions, and um so that's been a wonderful thing, and that's why this channel has been such a wonderful joy to me, because I I get to you know be around a lot of a lot of you as INFPs and INFJs, and and so we're sharing our experiences, and I'm getting to see see see unique perspectives on being that that type.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to hear from you about yeah, what your thoughts are on this experience of being a ghost, of feeling like a ghost.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: When does it happen?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is what we need to get curious about for ourselves.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when does that feeling, that particular feeling happen?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it with particular people or in particular um circumstances?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when do you not feel like a ghost?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is it with particular people or in particular circumstances?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that will help us to navigate our lives to be, you know, to be in with people and circumstances where we don't feel like being a ghost or we don't feel like we're a ghost.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's why when I'm creating with the men's sanctuary, which is, you know, six men meeting over four weeks together, it's the same, the same six men meeting over four weeks.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's this place where you know you can really be seen.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's mostly other INFPs and INFJs.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: There are other types that show up, and I love that because it really, it really creates such a unique experience because it brings other perspectives to the table, and that's what we what we all need too.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's but it's it's arriving with that curiosity, and it's a place of of witnessing one another as as humans, you know, in all of our in all of our experiences, whatever we're we're going through at the time, we bring that to each other, and it's a place of companionship where we don't feel like so much of a ghost, where we can, you know, show up as whoever we are in that moment, you know, with nothing prepared, nothing, you know, we don't have to, whatever you want to say, you know, mask or chameleon or all the things, we can just be more at ease.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's also a place to hear ourselves more clearly, because when we're in the presence of someone else and when we're speaking about our experience to someone else, we can hear a different.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can just see ourselves more clearly, because we'll hear ourselves say something and be like, oh, yeah, that's that is how I experience it.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or we'll hear someone else say something and it'll ring true for us, and we'll all of a sudden have a an aha moment.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh yeah, it's it's been really incredible watching watching these sanctuaries.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've hosted one and we're we're on a journey in the second one.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've had one week so far, and it's yeah, it's been really, really beautiful.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I would invite you to to sign up for Octobers.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's available in the links below.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And otherwise, if you can't, you know, afford to come or it's not the right time, the comments section.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm hoping we can just continue to create this this safe space of being curious about ourselves and others and connecting with one another in the comments and in the lives, which I've been posting weekly.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll continue that as well.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a nice place to yeah, see that we're not so alone in these experiences of feeling lonely or isolated or like a ghost or all the things that we talk about on this channel.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to thank you so much for being here in the Light Bears Library, and I wish you so many blessings.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Signing off for today, XOXO Kate.