Discovering INFJ

Original Post October 2022

When I was younger—though I can’t remember exactly when—I took a Myers-Briggs assessment and typed as an ISTJ. At the time, it made sense. I was analytical, practical, and largely disconnected from my feelings and intuition. That description fit how I operated in the world then, so I accepted it without much question.

As I got older and began exploring the Enneagram and other personality frameworks, I started to notice a disconnect. ISTJ described how I functioned at work, but it didn’t reflect my inner life or how I experienced relationships. I eventually brought this up to a career coach, explaining that the type didn’t feel accurate and asking whether people could change over time. She told me that Myers-Briggs types are fixed and that the core type remains the same throughout life. Since the description still didn’t feel right, I dismissed Myers-Briggs as a useful career tool but not a meaningful representation of personality as a whole.

Years later, while deepening my understanding of Human Design, I came across a video suggesting that many people are mistyped in Myers-Briggs, especially when they take the test during periods of stress or adaptation. The presenter argued that there are strong correlations between Human Design and Myers-Briggs types and recommended retaking the assessment with greater self-awareness. Out of curiosity, I did.

This time, the result was INFJ.

Of course, any self-assessment is influenced by where you are in life, so the real test isn’t the letters themselves but whether the underlying structure resonates. Until then, I hadn’t paid much attention to cognitive function stacks, which turned out to be the key. As I began studying the INFJ functions more deeply, something clicked. The description didn’t just feel familiar; it felt explanatory. Much like my experience with Human Design, it was as though I’d been looking through a distorted lens and suddenly the picture sharpened.

What surprised me most was realizing that identifying as INFJ helped explain why I’ve struggled for so long to understand myself. It also clarified why self-inquiry has been such a dominant theme in my adult life. INFJs are internally complex, often contradictory, and not well reflected back by the external world. That alone can create a lifelong drive to seek self-knowledge.

In that context, my earlier ISTJ result makes far more sense.

I grew up in a chaotic home. I was a highly sensitive child, and as a Human Design Manifestor, I was naturally independent and inwardly directed. My mother is an extrovert—possibly an ENFP—but emotionally volatile and unpredictable. My brother is also an extrovert, likely an ESTP, and very blunt and insensitive with his words. My father is an introvert, but emotionally distant and lacking empathy, possibly an ISTP. I was surrounded by strong personalities that filled space loudly and often critically, without much awareness of my sensitivity.

To survive, I shut down my intuitive and feeling functions. They weren’t safe. They weren’t respected. Logic, facts, and structure became my refuge. Thinking could not be argued with in the same way feelings could be dismissed. Sensory reality—what could be seen, measured, or proven—felt more trustworthy than emotional truth. In Myers-Briggs terms, I leaned heavily on Introverted Thinking and Extraverted Sensing to get through my early life.

At the same time, my closed and protective Manifestor aura made peer relationships difficult. I often felt excluded or misunderstood, which further reinforced my retreat inward. I learned not to rely on people and instead escaped into my imagination, where I could explore inner worlds without interruption or judgment. That inner landscape was rich, symbolic, and intuitive, but it stayed hidden, even from me.

Seen through this lens, ISTJ wasn’t my nature; it was my adaptation.

INFJ, on the other hand, describes what remained underneath once the coping mechanisms softened. Introverted Intuition had always been there, quietly observing patterns and meaning. Extraverted Feeling, though suppressed, had shaped my deep concern for others and my sensitivity to emotional environments. It simply took years—and a great deal of safety—to allow those functions to reemerge.

What this has taught me is that personality typing is far more nuanced than static labels suggest. Human beings adapt and survive. And sometimes the personality we present is not who we are, but who we had to become.

Reclaiming my INFJ nature has felt less like changing and more like remembering. It has helped me hold compassion for my younger self, who did the best she could with the tools available to her. It has also reinforced something I see again and again across systems like Human Design, the Enneagram, and Gene Keys: alignment is not about becoming someone new. It’s about shedding what no longer protects us and allowing what was always true to come back online.

And perhaps that is the real work of self-knowledge—not fixing ourselves, but finally trusting what we had to set aside in order to survive.