I shared my recent experience with Jealousy with a couple of INTJs yesterday. The response was something like,

“WHAT? YOU GET JEALOUS? MAN I HAVEN’T BEEN JEALOUS IN A LONG TIME. HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?”

Interesting.

Let me ask you guys something: Let’s say you had a hard day and did some things of which you weren’t proud. Now you just need to vent a bit, to a friend. And your friend is that person. Could you “be vulnerable” around someone like that? I don’t know if I could. I doubt they could step up to the plate and provide any meaningful assistance.

It’s not that they don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s more that they’re actively pushing the topic away, off the table, into the dustbin. And that’s weak. I’ll put on my “critic/improver” hat here and say it: That needs to be improved.

These are just two people. And they have their strengths in other areas, of course. And some of you guys are amazingly adept at attention to emotions.

But also, this is a group thing. It’s a traditional, back-of-the-INTJ-manual, “troubleshooting” topic.

I get that INTJs aren’t known for wearing emotions like jealousy on their sleeves (far from it, right?), but this kind of reaction triggers within me a “why not? Can we not do better?” response.

So I will happily push this further. For growth purposes. For experimental purposes.

Take a Little Trip

Here’s another thing I’m taking away from my recent, scandalous, jealousy experience: The contents. Jealousy can also alert you to some unreconciled stuff in your life, and that’s also the healing ingredient, the catalyst to set aside and process later, when your energy is at a high.

In this way, you can take advantage of jealousy and treat it like a trip. You know about trips? Wink-wink. You treat it much the same way you would treat a special voyage to Peru. Part of that experience is in gathering information, as in, “WHOA! I didn’t know that kind of content was in there, part of me!” Emotional experiences like jealousy can work the same way.

And I think that’s also something special given a big, recent factor like the COVID-19 quarantine. You want to go to the beach, like I do? The mountains? Yes! But also, the trip, or “a trip,” is right in front of you. What color are your emotions right now? Can you work to identify feelings? Intuitions? Depending on where your energy is at, you may have “access only,” for processing later. Or you may have processing energy with which to review recent emotions.

In which safe spaces are exploded

But I don’t know. It also feels ridiculous to discuss this stuff on an INTJ blog, in a way. It’s not really building on latent strengths in a specific area. I mean, nobody talks about INTJs like they’re the most emotionally-developed people out there. And nobody, I mean nobody really wants to dwell on their weaknesses for long.

But on the other hand, this is building on core INTJ strengths: For example, a mindset that is open to learning. This strength can in turn push INTJs to growth and eventual change. Learning is always a first step in change. If you can learn, you can change.

Unfortunately, bridging from learning to growth is a frickin’ minefield, but that ought to be treated as a specific issue with its own tricks & tips, not a show-stopper that completely halts a big-picture communications process.

So, for now I’ll keep doing this stuff, even if some of you push back like you never heard of jealousy. Hah.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Fi /35/ | Fe /20/ | Relationships /78/ | Openness /49/ | Coaching /27/ | Control /110/ | People /74/ | Feeling /64/