The evolution of self, over decades, and what has caused it

From INTP to ENTP to INFP. Yes, anyone can change even if the personality tests say you can’t

One of the unexpected pleasures of blogging has been the emergence of a small number of fellow slaves and submissives who have encouraged me and helped me make sense of my feelings.  They have been supplemented by a small number of Dommes who have graciously coached, corrected, and instructed me.  I feel that I have some harem friends and find tremendous comfort with safe people who are helping me to relax into service.

One of them asked me to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality test so that she could understand me better, and also shared her own profile.  I have always enjoyed taking these types of tests, not because I slavishly (hehe) follow the findings, but because they often trigger some level of introspection, which is generally helpful and growth-oriented.

For those of you who do not know the test, you can take it yourself by following this link. This particular version of the test is quite evolved from when I first took it, and adds a lot of richness to it. If you are interested, the 16 Personalities website test is free, so can be a little bit of fun to find yourself or your loved ones. I looked up Mistress’s profile, for example, and found deeper understanding of my appreciation for her.

This particular test has the added benefit of being one that I first took when I was 19 at my mother’s prodding.  She was part of a Southern Belle network with very strong social norms, and this test became a popular set piece for a while.  My mother’s enthusiasm for the test ran to her husband, who was not the type for these things, but who acquiesced because to not do so was a recipe for trouble, and her enthusiasm ran to me.  Not my siblings.  Just me.  Why?  Hmm.  I’ll go there, just not today.

Lo and behold, my results showed me to have the identical personality type as her husband.  No wonder I liked him.  Without being too creepy, this outcome became very significant to my mother, and one she talked about all the time.  All the time.

INTP.  

That was my 20-year-old self (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving).  This is a “nerd” profile.  I think of it now as the profile of someone who hasn’t yet grown up.  At the time I was really wrapped up into myself, a totally intellectual, Gauloise-smoking, tortured artist type.   Except I wasn’t.  I was a jock.  I was a jock with a tortured artist, Gauloise-smoking, nerd struggling to get out.  That’s what it was like to be an INTP.  Unable to express my emotions.

Thank goodness I had the brains to realise something was wrong with me.  The more my mother told me I was just like her husband the more I realised that my self-destructive tendencies, and unwillingness to grab my own personality by the throat and force change, was going to get me nowhere in life.  I had to get out.

I signed myself up for several years of intensive psychoanalysis, wrestling with the demons, realising that if I didn’t deal with them, I’d be dead or worse by the time I was 30.  My dysphoria was eating me alive.  So too were my self-destructive tendencies.  I knew I needed to grow up.

I got a great job, had a great boss, a mentor—yup, you guessed it, a Woman.  Her talent got her onto the cover of Business Week, and I discovered the joy of service to a beautiful, driven, talented Woman.  She shaped and moulded me, and pushed me so much, and then helped my career so much, not just then, but for years after.

A lot of great things came back to me from this period of intense personal re-programming, and forcing myself to become someone who could survive in this world, be happy, accept my body, and forge a positive life.  I fell in love with a woman who remains to this day one of my only regrets—that I didn’t ask her to come with me when I left…but in truth, she was ahead of me, I still needed to grow, and she has found great happiness—and me too.

I went to grad school and then got another great job, and again, found myself working for an incredible Woman.  She made it a personal mission to break me out of my tight emotional state.  She was, and is, an incredible human, a leader on a global stage, a first in many categories, and she was my champion.  

I also met my SO.  The first time I asked her to marry me, she said, “you’re not ready.  Ask me again in 6 months.  And not unless you see a therapist.”  Non-binary might no longer be there to kill you, but it might still make an uneasy bedfellow in a relationship.  Six months later she said, “yes”, but I was still at the beginning of a very valuable two years with an excellent therapist.  My SO saved me in so many ways.  The respect I have for her as a human, for her passion, for her sense of self, for the way she treats people, is what drew me to her.  That she loved me and held me tight, and put up with my self-destructive and passive aggressive nonsense for those first few years, as if to say, “you’re worth it,” was the most powerful statement of love I have ever received.  Just quiet, unshakable, transformative love.  That love gave me the confidence to change myself and make myself a better person.

ENTP.  

Extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving.

Although they may seem quiet or unassuming, Mediators (INFPs) have vibrant, passionate inner lives. Creative and imaginative, they happily lose themselves in daydreams, inventing all sorts of stories and conversations in their minds. These personalities are known for their sensitivity – Mediators can have profound emotional responses to music, art, nature, and the people around them.

Idealistic and empathetic, Mediators long for deep, soulful relationships, and they feel called to help others. But because this personality type makes up such a small portion of the population, Mediators may sometimes feel lonely or invisible, adrift in a world that doesn’t seem to appreciate the traits that make them unique.

From the 16 Personalities Website

It took me over a decade, but I went from being an interior-living person, to one who thrived on contact with my fellow humans.  This shift was about where you get your energy—from yourself, or from the people around you.  This was a huge step for me.  And at every juncture it was women who helped me grow.

In more recent years, the big change was how emotional I was becoming.  Having children had changed me.  My mother had once said that having children is to leave you emotionally raw, and I didn’t understand what she meant until I gazed at my first born as he throttled out his first startled cry, and knew then, in a flash, what she was talking about.  Children make you emotionally alive.  What you choose to do with it is up to you.

But my fundamental character seemed to be changing too.  And this time, it felt much more profound than the first time, when I shifted from INTP to ENTP.  I was working with business leaders or being one myself, and found that I spent an increasing amount of my time not on finding right answers, but on understanding how people ticked.  I was tapping into the emotional tenor of the workplace.

INFP.

This is what my result from the test done the other day was.  Feeling has replaced thinking as my dominant mode.  This has been a delicious change.  I believe it has made me a far more effective boss, and certainly for a subordinate, it is a lot easier to follow and respect an INFP than an INTP.  We are all about bringing people along, making people feel good about themselves. And why the change back to an “I” from an “E”? I can only think that so much change in my life has pushed me to once again become introspective.

I’ve always thought that people don’t much change.  Indeed, according to the Myers-Briggs, it is unusual that someone would change, and change so much.  But these changes are tied to personal growth.  It took work, real challenge.

Mistress wants me to work on my emotional landscape, on trusting my intuition, in cultivating the female aspects of my character.  And in this we come full circle.  I’ve spent my whole life running away from who I am inside, my id, my feminine self.  I’m not saying anything earth-shattering, but it just feels right.  It feels like I am coming home.

Life is a terrible struggle, difficult yes, but also filled with joy.  But there is nothing compared to the joy I feel today, that after a life of hard work and sublimation, that I have finally met a person who is not just allowing me to be free, but encouraging it, and encouraging it within the context of my family and my life.  

I should love to see the world filled with such enlightened Goddesses…and all the rest of you, take heed. Find one and follow Her.  She will improve your life.