Power vs connection in relationships

[rainrise]

Power in the traditional top down sense, not spiritual sense which essentially is kinder, inner sourced, essentially not too different from connection.

So my question is, how do you relate to people or reflect on closeness especially as you grow older looking at your friendships in childhood to how you feel with people in your life now. Older infjs can you tell us your wisdom?

Thinking on this because I’ve seen many posts grappling with appearances or you could say projections to give people a seeking upper hand in life, or protection safety surety what have you notions sensible and smart though a bit from a fear/lack/individualist mindset like ‘don’t prioritize those who only treat you as an option’, or ‘say as little as possible and never over explain yourself so people don’t treat you like a doormat’.

I get it when it comes down to good discernment of where to put your energy, in recognizing those who can’t reciprocate or doors that have closed or aren’t your calling/frequency. I get it that like how Meryl Streep had to observe them embody , she quotes, powerful men, to get into character that the world at large believes power to be contained rather than connective…aka it believes competing - cutting off emotion and access is winning and connecting or reaching out makes you appear weak and needy. It’s our culture the same culture that looks down on women saying an average of however many more words than men a day in average as anomaly or amusing and looking on men’s comparatively little verbiage as more astute…appropriate. This is beyond gender and sex but these examples are what have come up just from the top of my head.

It’s not that I don’t heed the sense and logic of these, I do but I think also there must be something stifled when we’re always in business and professional mode looking out for being taken advantage of who has the upper hand in a relationship …like it needs to be rounded with something more genuine.

Your thoughts?

 

[John K]

@rainrise

I don't find it easy to make a complete reply because it's such a big topic, so complex, and each of us will come to these issues from different perspectives - both from who we each are individually, and according to the huge range of circumstances we encounter day to day out there in the world.

I'm long retired, so I no longer have work related greasy poles to challenge me (if ever I really did have), nor awkward clients to satisfy. I guess some of the places I reached, evolving slowly over the decades, are like this:

• I learned that it's a mistake for me as an INFJ type to react to strong Yang energy with the same - my strength has always been in Yin, and that has served me very well over the years. It takes a bit of practice of course in a Western society, but used well it can be very powerful.
• I found that if only we can lay aside the social insecurity that rises all too easily within our Fe, we can listen to other people dispassionately and deeply with our intuition. Very often people playing the dominance game are very insecure and that is their crutch, their Zimmer frame. For me knowing things is my equivalent and as a teenager I had to know more and better than everyone else, because that was how I found my self-worth as a child at junior school. It still creeps out even now. To see these things within others brings the possibility of relating to them with greater understanding of their depths rather than what is just there in your face. We can then ask ourselves questions such as do we really want to play competition with someone like this - or is it kinder to just let them have the ascendancy that they so desperately crave. Depending on the circumstances of course.
• We have the possibility of knowing ourselves better as we get older, so not only are we less emotively bound to the social games, but we know our strengths and limitations. These are best learnt like a child learns to walk - by trial and error, failure and triumph ..... as long as we don't get ourselves into Groundhog Day with the same problem in eternal return.
• Very often introverted intuitive types have a very rich set of worlds we live in - each different from the others. This is a great gift, and if we look, we can usually find that the folks who we have a hard time with seem only to have one world. I find sometimes it's like watching a 2D flatlander from a 3D universe. This doesn't make me better than them, but it does give me a huge perspective that most other types don't seem to have - and that gives me a very solid bedrock of my own genuine value and validity.

There are all kinds of traps for our type in relating to folks with whom we have problems.

• Maybe the ones that set out to push us down the social pecking order, or compete with us over something more specific, are the most obvious. The trap is that we try and tackle them on their own ground and get hurt. What I found helped in a group with these sort is to try and form a relationship with one of the alphas - put some effort into it and be useful to them. It can mean playing their game, but we are good at the chameleon thing - as long as it doesn't badly infringe our moral code of course. The advantage of this is that they give us reflected social standing and protection. It doesn't stop there though because I can then play a long game with my more Yin oriented energy style, which eventually establishes me within the social framework as essential and respected. Once I'm there, I can relax gradually into my more native personal style, at least up to a point. But of course this all depends on the nature of the group and what it's there for.
• But then we have the folks with emotional problems who are much more easy to be compassionate about. These aren't the ones who try to dominate or bully us, but are also victims of some sort. We feel sorry for them, feel their pain, help them, we become allies against the baddies - then suddenly we realise that instead of healing, they are compensating by leaning on us to the point they are draining us dry emotionally. It's so very important we learn where our limits lie, what is possible for us, and what will push us over a cliff sooner or later. I think in an ideal world, INFJs would be identified in adolescence and taught how to not let folks into our core unless we know them inside out and trust them very, very deeply. It's a natural thing for us to do with just about anyone when we are young, but other types don't do this. It's a lovely, God-like ability - but we don't have God-like infinite emotional or physical resources and it's an indulgence we need to have in tight conscious control. Eventually with such folks we run out of inner resource, or we start to take on their emotional instabilities as though they were ours, and we can become drained dry and fall over an inner cliff, one that we didn't know was there.

This is all a bit rambling, off the top and incomplete. Is it the sort of thing you were thinking of? Does it make sense?

 

[Wyote]

There are kind of a couple of narratives going on among humans.
Be some overbearing noodle knob and you'll succeed.
Or alternatively just keep your head down and do as you're told while you quietly climb the ladder.
I find that I do better when I don't pay any attention to all that noise though.
Being genuine will position you where you fit best and accepting wherever you land is the key.
Much like @John K I am rife with Yin and in some circles this is a superpower and in others it is not great.

 

[Wyote]

Also, the actual reality of things is that cooperation and kindness (and positive feedback) beat out everything
And yet, this weird "alpha male" narrative continues

 

[aeon]

Being genuine will position you where you fit best and accepting wherever you land is the key.

Also, the actual reality of things is that cooperation and kindness beat out everything

Worked, and works, for me.

And it’s interesting how the first bit is necessary for the genuine authenticity of the second but.

Authenticity also leads to flow because you are not running some script or “doing” anything.

But that doesn’t mean it is easy. No, self-work and being loving is a life’s work.

Read it again so @Wyote knows he is not casting pearls before swine.

Blesséd Be,
Ian