INFJ Empathy: Is It a Gift or a Curse?

Growing up, I was always extremely perceptive to the emotions of others. Most of the time I pretended like I wasn’t because it makes people uncomfortable when you know more than they want you to know.

On the other hand, once people realize that you understand without them having to explain how they feel it’s a relief. With the benefits and challenges that come with INFJ empathy, it makes you wonder: is it a gift or a curse?

Understanding INFJ Empathy

As an INFJ personality type, I genuinely enjoy connecting with people on a deep and emotional level. I also easily pick up on their energy and emotional state and want to maintain harmony in my environment.

When you’re naturally an empathetic and intuitive person, you can experience an almost “sixth sense” like-ability to process emotions of others without conversation. For example, an INFJ could walk into a party and instantly feel that something is off. Later the host, who was acting friendly and composed the entire night, has a panic attack because they’ve been so stressed the entire evening.

The INFJ was able to sense that something was wrong with the host or maybe just that everything in the party environment wasn’t quite right before anything had actually happened. This information would cause them to feel stress or anxiety at the event as well.

Although empathy and intuition aren’t the same things, when combined they can create an almost constant state of emotional turmoil for an INFJ who is surrounded by emotionally needy or unhealthy people.

Considering the current state of our world, INFJ empathy often feels like a curse. There is a lot of anger, hate and sadness out there and feeling that when you don’t have to feel it is hard.

The good news is that empathy is an emotion, and emotions — or at least our responses to them — can be controlled.

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Learning to Control Emotional Responses

The most obvious solution to not letting yourself be emotionally drained by empathy is to not put yourself in situations that are going to drain you. Many empathetic people choose not to watch the news, engage in potentially conflictive conversations, or spend time with emotionally needy or unhealthy people.

But are we being fair to ourselves if we’re limiting our interactions with the outside world just because it feels too hard to deal with?

It isn’t healthy to consistently suppress uncomfortable feelings, although it’s definitely easier. Instead, we have to practice how we control our responses like we would with any other emotion.

For example, if someone calls you a bad name it might hurt your feelings. You may choose to respond by angrily calling them something back or by crying. As children, this is often how we react.

As we grow older we learn how to control our reaction and this control over reaction also changes how we feel. Eventually, the bad name from a stranger has no control over how we feel or perceive ourselves because we’ve built up confidence and control over our emotions.

Controlling Empathy for INFJs

The same goes for our empathy as INFJs. Being around someone who is sad may make you feel sad. But once you’ve been around enough people who are sad, you realize that you can feel and experience this emotion in an indirect way.

Instead of feeling sad you instead recognize this empathetic response to sadness as one that is separate from your own sadness. This takes practice and patience and requires you to experience the outside world and everyone in it in all its glory.

Another way to control your response to empathy is by having direct conversations with others about how they’re feeling once you notice the feeling is affecting you. For example, the other night I was hanging out with a group of friends and I could tell that something was wrong with one person in the group. This was causing me to feel upset and uncomfortable.

I had a few choices: I could leave the situation, I could try to ignore the feeling which would probably lead to feelings of resentment toward the person that was unknowingly making me feel this way, or I could pull the person aside and simply ask what’s wrong. I chose the latter and we had a short conversation about what was bothering her.

After our conversation, I felt better, she felt better and we went on to have a great night.

Viewing Empathy as a Gift

Even though empathy feels like a curse, I’ve come to appreciate it as a gift. Empathy pushes me to live in a world where everything and everyone feels outside of my comfort zone and that helps me grow.

One of my favorite quotes is, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” Empathetic people can fear empathy and view it as a curse that they should hide from. Or they can embrace it as one of their unique strengths and use it to help people and better the world around them. Which do you choose?