Creativity and Self-Sabotage

INFJ personality types and INFP personality types both tend to struggle with self-sabotage in the creative process. Self-sabotage is an energy that is always driven by fear. For INFJ personality types and INFP personality types, the fear is often that if we experience a creative success, we will then be held to that higher standard for ever after. When we inevitably fail to meet that standard again in the future, we fear that others will be disappointed in us, withdraw their love, and then abandon us.

INFJ personality types and INFP personality types also frequently have a fear of exposure. We fear that if we write our memoir and expose family secrets, or we write a fictional novel and the characters resemble people or situations in our real lives, then we will expose things that we shouldn’t and we will then experience a great amount of backlash from family and friends. Along with this comes a fear of judgement. Many INFJ personality types and INFP personality types are very afraid that someone will misinterpret our words or take offense at something we’ve written or said, and we will then be unfairly judged for that.

Lastly, INFJ personality types and INFP personality types have a fear of revealing our authentic self to the world. Many of us use the strategy of being a chameleon as a type of social crutch in our relationships. We become whatever the other person wants us to be, in order to accommodate their needs and preferences. We usually do this automatically, as a holdover survival strategy from a dysfunctional childhood.

All of these fears that lead to self-sabotage are linked to inner wounds, which is why self-sabotage is something to be healed, not conquered.

I talk more about this in the video below:

I’m teaching a new class starting July 3 called Healing Through Creativity, and we’ll be learning how to uncover our natural (if unconventional) creative gifts and use them to heal our own inner wounds, as well as how we can share our creativity with others to spread the energy of healing.

We’ll be covering topics like:

Neurodivergence and creativity

Trauma and creativity

Psychic gifts and creativity

Make sure you SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter HERE to get the next video in this series, and all the updates on when registration for Healing Through Creativity opens, and please also SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel here to get more videos on creativity, intuition, and life as an intuitive personality type. If you have any questions about the class, you can send them to me here.

I’ll see you soon with the last video in this series: Neurodivergence and Creativity.

Lauren Sapala is the author of Writing on the Intuitive Side of the Brain, The INFJ Writer, The INFJ Revolution, and the creator of Energy and Intuition for INFJs, an online course for INFJs on intuition, relationships, creativity, and more. She is also currently offering a free copy of her book Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers to anyone who signs up for her newsletter. SIGN UP HERE to get your free copy.