How Empaths Find Their Strengths
What if you’re not broken—just misnamed? What if you’ve spent years trying to fix what was never wrong, simply because no one gave you the language to understand yourself?
That’s where the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can be radical medicine.
We live in a world that tells us who to be. Parents, school, work, society—all of them project expectations onto us. Somewhere along the way, many of us begin to contort, suppress, or even abandon the parts of ourselves that don’t align with what others expect. The result? A false persona: a mask we wear to survive, perform, and feel accepted.
But beneath that mask lives your true self—and MBTI can help you find the trail back.
It’s Not a Label. It’s a Mirror.
Yes, Myers-Briggs has its critics. Yes, it gets lumped in with astrology and called pseudoscience. But here's the difference: MBTI doesn't tell you who you are. You tell it who you are—and it gives you a name for it.
That name isn’t just a label; it’s a mirror. For those of us who've been told our strengths are weaknesses and our differences are flaws, MBTI doesn’t just explain us—it validates us.
Especially for types like INFJs (the rarest type), finally finding your type can feel like stumbling upon proof that you’re not broken or alone. It’s just that your wiring is rare—and beautiful.
Why MBTI Matters
If you grew up with emotionally immature caregivers, chances are your natural cognitive gifts were not nurtured. You were shaped into who they wanted you to be, not who you actually were. This leads to underdeveloped strengths, misaligned identities, and a chronic sense of "not enough."
But once you know your true type, everything begins to click.
You stop trying to fix your introversion like it's a flaw. You stop forcing yourself to think like a sensor when you're a deep intuitive. You stop making decisions based on what’s logical if your deepest wisdom comes from feeling.
Most of all, you stop apologizing for being who you are.
The Four Letters: A Quick Breakdown
Every MBTI type is made of four letters:
E or I: Where you get your energy — Extroversion or Introversion
S or N: How you gather information — Sensing or Intuition
T or F: How you make decisions — Thinking or Feeling
J or P: How you live your life — Judging or Perceiving
From those letters, we get deeper layers: your dominant cognitive functions, your auxiliary strengths, your weaknesses, and the way you loop under stress.
For example, INFJs lead with Introverted Intuition—the ability to see future possibilities and underlying patterns. But their extroverted mask is Extraverted Feeling, which can create confusion. The world sees their caring outer shell, but misses the penetrating insight beneath.
That’s the thing about introverts—we often lead with our second-best function, and the world never sees the full power of our number one.
Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had
Understanding your cognitive functions is like uncovering the toolkit you never knew you were carrying. Each function plays a different role: some are dominant like your right hand, others are like your non-dominant foot—still useful, just underdeveloped.
This knowledge helps you balance:
Going inward vs. going outward
Trusting intuition vs. trusting facts
Making decisions vs. staying open to new possibilities
And when stress hits, we all "loop." We overuse our top strengths and avoid the rest—leading to stuckness, anxiety, or impulsive decisions. Knowing your type helps you break those loops and restore inner balance.
The Dysfunctional Anthill
Right now, the world is like a dysfunctional ant colony. The visionary ants are stuck harvesting crumbs. The nurturing ants are forced into leadership. No one is doing what they’re built for—and we all suffer for it.
MBTI won’t fix everything. But it might just help you get back to your original design—and that changes everything.
Your Invitation
Your homework? Learn your type. Find your strengths. Start believing in them again.
You're not broken. You're just remembering who you were before the world told you otherwise.
