Letting go of what doesn’t serve me

Yoga class was really hard yesterday emotionally. Sam said hi and I asked him how he was. He said he was going to put on a recording because he couldn’t stop sneezing. There were only three others in the class, none of them stayed in the poses long, and only one stayed to the end. It was exhausting to stay in poses but I felt like if I didn’t do yoga I don’t know what I’d do.

I wrote some last thoughts to this place that turns out not to be a good fit to me. Maybe the way our last meeting went kind of confirmed it: just a little of my going through a process of struggle or resistance during the meeting and they interpret me, whether my tone or body language, as aggressive and antagonistic. I am pretty sure they have questioned my intentions all along or for a really long time, too. Now, based on how I have been in that community and what I have written, I can’t blame them, but as someone said to me, they’re ‘supposed to’ be an understanding group of people. I feel like things aren’t seen in light of my neurodivergence or trauma and my uniqueness many of my good qualities in their presence turn into bad ones.

At a certain point there’s no use trying to explain yourself to people, everything you do is going to be seen as connected to some way you were when you did something they didn’t like, and you know when it gets exhausting, like you are sure things you are doing like brushing your teeth are being evaluated and misinterpreted, it’s time to let go of everything that doesn’t serve you. I have probably made it so I will never outlive my past. When I let go and accept that as ‘understanding’ as they are supposed to be they just aren’t going to make room for me to be welcome, as I am, and no longer do I have to struggle with their perceptions of me, a huge amount of energy is released in my life.

I feel like now getting to put all this aside is going to be hugely transformative to me and they were right whether or not I wanted to admit it. I wasn’t planning on going back to that retreat centre a whole lot. I just wanted to spend time with people and contribute and be seen but probably the being seen part was going to be really hard. But… just having the doors open to me, even though I’m not attached to that place anymore, would keep my energy stuck there and prevent so much better stuff from entering my life.

Being accepted at a place doesn’t necessarily mean I am seen and maybe that’s why I subconsciously sabotaged the meeting. Could they accept my neurodivergent INFP nature and not take it in all the wrong ways when I start this meeting that determines my future with the organisation by sharing once again how hurt I was by not getting responses to emails and things? I guess that wasn’t trusting them to have taken in the information I already shared with them. People generally think people like to be accepted, but me, as an INFP, if I am worried about possibly not being accepted, I might test the waters and say or do things that, if accepted, will have me feeling a whole lot more at home, but that would put my acceptance in jeopardy if not. So, I guess I went and said that kind of thing at the meeting like it was a meeting about getting out old hurts which has *already* been done instead of about moving forward.

Could they hold more than one possible interpretation of the behaviour they were seeing? I think I am clear now that being with them is always going to be fighting against past perceptions. I alove the motivation Sam gives during yoga class. Today he reminded us we can go into *any* pose as gently as we need to, and that we can let go of anything that doesn’t serve us. It is so strange how we hold onto these things and this obsessive rational part of me wants to obsess about *why* it doesn’t serve me and isn’t a good fit. There is a lot more room now I guess for what does serve me and letting go of what I haven’t let go around my connection to that place will be so healing.

I’m just learning about myself again as an INFP from YouTube videos. And if there is a personality type I am crushing on right now it is the INFJ. I think maybe as an INFP the only way to date anyone is talking about personality types because INFPs can’t just date anyone off the street or even off of dating apps. We need someone who *wants* what INFPs have to offer and we have so much to offer to those who *are* compatible with us. If I don’t know myself as an INFP I am not going to understand what I really have to offer that someone might want. It helps me find self-worth and understand what makes me different and what others don’t get about me.  And when it is clear that someone isn’t going to see me in an appropriate way I can trust my INFP soul and move along.

I mentioned being an INFP in the meeting actually and felt like people found me silly like they had no idea how to see my behaviour through that lens. That’s okay and I am surprised sometimes that everyone doesn’t know what I mean by INFP or have a general idea about personality types. I felt like everything I said was likely being evaluated, my intentions and motivations were beijg evaluated, my body language was being evaluated, and they were exasperated with me not because I did anything wrong but because they didn’t like how I said and did anything they just don’t see me or know how to interpret me. That would have been hard enough before I made a fool of myself and *let* them see me in all sorts of ways I didn’t want to be seen. It’s hard enough as a neurodivergent INFP to be seen clearly as you are but after you have made it nearly impossible for others to see you through an accurate lens there’s no chance of it. Being misinterpreted and having your intentions second guessed are really really hard for INFPs. It this meeting there was no room for my messiness and wrestling a bit with the question, ‘what if you took our answer to letting you come back as a no?’ was seen as aggression? I was having a struggle within myself and I think they saw me as fighting or resisting them and it was awful because I did not behave badly, I was just way misunderstood, and that kind of misunderstanding based on such subtle things or not expressing myself the way they would have liked especially in response to a deep, personal question is exactly why I need to write about being a neurodivergent INFP. And stop being confusing to others in ways that ensure they’ll never get me. And find people it’s fun to explain how I work to, who want to understand how to relate to me as I am.

It’s probably also hard for INFPs to let go of situations where they’re not seen or appreciated, I don’t know. I make clear how horrible I feel about behaviour including making people uncomfortable and stretching the truth and lying and those accusations were put on me again like I didn’t already know and I needed to be reminded. Like they did not hear that I was aware of these things. Like I needed more criticism when I was already well aware of what I’d done and do feel horrible but they don’t see that and it’s not a good fit for me but it’s so hard to really acknowledge that and let go. It is like the end of a bad relationship where the things you trusted were so gotten at the beginning are now apparently seen in a totally different light and there is probably no way to be yourself around people who have already formed so much in their ways of seeing you. You are going to feel judged and seen in ways that are not true to who you are, but that’s okay, everything that does not serve me, I can let go.

It can be so hard to turn over a new leaf so to speak when you are aware that others have inaccurate perceptions of you at least if you’re me. Maybe it’s an INFP thing. When I sense others have hurtful, inaccurate perceptions of me, especially, I suppose, if those perceptions were created in part by my own complicity in making it impossible for them to see me any other way, I know how they are seeing me and how they expect me to act, and my physiology literally makes me do exactly the thing that really isn’t me but would confirm them even more in what they already believe about me! That is exaaaactly what I think I did at the meeting that gave some of them the worst first and last impression of me but if they were never equipped to see me anyway can I give myself some slack and let it go and simply accept that this place that has had some strange and powerful influence over so much of my life is not a good fit and maybe never was what happens if I let it go? It feels powerful. Others get to decide how they see me and I get to decide where I spend my time and if they are worth mine. I get to write about what my life means and what that place being in it has to do with everything. What if I heal all the energy I feel around that place and feel my life without the heaviness? I am fascinated to understand what did happen in my time there and I don’t need others who may have interpretations of my situation that I am simply incompatible with in my way. The last meeting for me is a real jumping board into thinking about writing about INFP life, thinking about how often my innocent difference is interpreted wrong and how so much of that has to do with being neurodivergent or INFP. So what is it like to be a neurodivergent INFP? Um, take that last meeting with this organisation as a case in point as far as all the painful ways an INFP can be misunderstood especially when so many interpretations, fair or otherwise, and previous ways of making sense of you, are stacked against you.

Maybe I will start writing publicly about being neurodivergent and INFP and understanding everything I have been through with all this in light of that. Making sense of everything I have been through by being compassionate and gentle with myself and stepping away from all those other interpretations of me and my tendency to fulfill how I know or fear people are seeing me. Maybe it doesn’t make sense that when you fear people seeing you some way, the more you fear it, the more your neurological system does everything it can to confirm it: the wrong words slip out of your mouth, you gesture a certain way that you know is going to confirm for people exactly what you fear they are already thinking. I wonder if that is an INFP thing.