…or does it.
Being a SO (Social Instinct) Repressed introvert, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of teams, groups and communities in a person’s life over the last few years.
I understand the roots in my childhood of why my #personality is deeply ‘skeptical’ of the benefits of belonging to groups (–more on this in another post).
I’ve noticed how my #personality is ‘efforting’ against anything done in group, i.e. that it doesn’t ‘just happen’ that I don’t typically belong to any, or at least my affiliations are always super loose.
Instead this is the result of me (unconsciously) choosing the solo (or one-on-one) route whenever I come to a crossroad.
Over the years I’ve also come to consciously realize how beautiful and important belong can be, so my work with this currently is just to make sure that I make more of my decisions re groups and belonging to them more consciously (…and that I include SOME group stuff into my life).
The reason for wanting to offset my subconscious ego strategy is that I don’t want to be an addict to my #personality in general, nor to my Dominant Instinct in this case, at the expense of my Repressed one.
Which is what we all do, BTW, i.e. we are addicted both to our Type and our Dominant Instinct.
And what we know about addictions in other walks of life apply here as well: they are a problem because they lead to
–limited functioning in other areas of our lives, depriving us of developing other, equally important (emotional, social, etc.) skills
–overuse (abuse) of just the one area at the expense of neglecting developing ourselves into well-rounded humans
–and in more extreme cases alienating us from (e.g. judging) others who don’t lead with the same Instinct.
While it is clearly problematic if I don’t develop my SO Instinct, I have also seen examples of it being overused, which can become equally limiting, in e.g. the following ways:
–You don’t develop your individuality and other (hard) skills enough. You don’t spend enough time alone that would allow for deep practice and mastery of any new hard or soft skill.
–You don’t develop the emotional, psychological resilience to enjoy time alone, and there are moments in life when we will be (should be!) alone. (See “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal –)
–Your other connections (e.g. with SP or SX Types) might suffer as they might want more 1-on-1 connecting or just e.g. more time at home, doing more ‘grounding’ activities e.g. around the household.
The invitation with this is twofold:
–Be conscious of your Dominant Instinct and develop ways to keep it in check. (In other words, do NOT overuse it, much as though it might feel ‘natural’ or ‘authentic’ (–often code for ego!).
and
–Be conscious of your Repressed Instinct and take (micro) steps (at least) to develop it.
If you want help with any of this or your #personality in general, this is how you could get started:
1) Follow me on LinkedIn!
2) Follow me on Substack!
3) Message me if you would like a free PDF overview of the 9 #personality Types!
4) Schedule a free Type and Instinct Exploration Session!
