Haven’t done this in a few days. There’s something about private journaling that’s just not cutting it. Almost like the reverse of what used to happen— that is, journaling used to be better than writing in public because I would feel more free. However since I feel sufficiently free here as well, I feel better when I write here, since it then adds towards goal-completion pursuits. Journaling sometimes feels like “lost progress”.
I’ve gotten a bit into Myers-Briggs and other personality tests again lately and though I know they can be a bit harmful (esp for people like me), I couldn’t stop myself from indulging in them. I think some of the findings have been interesting and can be potentially helpful too, actually, if I can take some time out to process them properly.
The INFP thing I’ve been pretty comfortable with, but a friend recommended the Enneagram test to me as well, and that’s been a lot more stimulus than I was expecting. I test to be a type-4 at the moment and everything that’s listed in the “growth recommendations” is stuff that is quite.. intense, for the lack of a better word.
The top two things that stick out, that also feel tough to implement right away, provided I’d even want to, are:
- Don’t pay so much attention to your feelings— this is quite tough since the last few months have been me actually paying a good amount of attention to my feelings. I think the meaning I’d want to assign to this is that feelings are valuable, and I definitely want to validate them, take my time to “feel” them perhaps (through activity and action as much as possible), but maybe I need to have time-caps on this, because spending more time than needed on any of the feelings can be harmful, of course. Maybe I want to cut myself off before it becomes “indulgence”.
- Avoid putting off things until you are “in the right mood.”— this is also something I’m quite guilty of. I do tend to take a lot of time to do things because I generally believe I don’t do good work if I’m not doing it from a good state of mind. While I thought I had gotten quite better at dealing with these perfectionist tendencies, maybe there’s some more work to be done. I think if I had to be real, I’ve gotten better at this from one end only— for example, I’m now okay with leaving things at “90%”, but maybe I also need to be better at “starting things”— even when I don’t feel like I’m in the best state for them.
The general theme seems to be that action, activity and discipline would be much better for me than fantasy and indulgence. Of course, this is something I know and I’ve been attempting to get to a point where I can think about implementing this, I haven’t yet.
I had a couple of interesting conversations with strangers this week and those was also quite impactful, but something my therapist said which really helped me look at it differently was:
- What is the meaning you want to assign to it?
This is important since it made me realise the right words— especially the right questions— can make such a big difference. I was taking everything I was thinking and feeling to be the truth, whereas really, I do have some control over how much importance I want to give to events and stimulus and feelings and thoughts.
I feel like I have more things to talk about but I’m not sure what exactly. Social calendar is getting a bit pressurising— even though action and activity is nice, and it’s mostly nice to be around people, I don’t know what part of it is pressurising and draining exactly. Maybe it’s just my introversion needs coming into play. But when I do get time to myself I end up spending a lot of time in my head. So I guess the thing to figure out is how to spend time with myself that is still aligned with what I’ve learnt about action and activity. I think physical activity is the main thing I need to incorporate. I’ve been dancing a lot more and that feels pretty great, actually, but perhaps there’s more room for it.
Alright, I think I have a qualitative plan, I’ll convert this into an action plan next week.
Cheers xx
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