Weeding and Caretaking?

Strolling my neighborhood with my pup in tow (who’s kidding whom, she’s leading me, ever on the hunt for food), I’m reminded that somehow nature always wins. Let go, nature is wild and untamed with overgrown brush, fallen trees, weeds sprouting out in random places. Such a state of affairs, however, doesn’t work out so well when you live in a neighborhood where we’re each charged with keeping it somehow in check. Looking out over my back yard garden as I write this post, mine is neatened up a bit after some weeding and whacking. This time of the summer we in the southern U.S. are beset with high humidity and often hot, dry summer weather to which we got some relief the last few days. I took the opportunity of cooler temps to get a bit of work done.

I felt if I wrote the first paragraph about my surroundings, I’d surely find a metaphor for life and living. Hmmm. Let’s go with this - aren’t our lives often due for some neatening, some pruning of the old to allow new growth? This week I had the random thought that if a lot of **it hasn’t happened to you in your lifetime, have you really lived? After all, other than death and taxes, change is the other inevitability.

My spouse is facing cancer and I’m trying to help our son launch himself into what is assuredly a challenging world these days, from worries about whether they’ll ever afford a home, how they’ll manage student debt, a changed job landscape with the advent of AI and a social landscape that at least here in the U.S. isn’t looking so swell at the moment.

As I marked another year in my life on this planet this past week and with it my spouse thanked me for my caretaking capabilities and calm in the face of our challenges, I thought back to the other times I’ve naturally taken on the task for various people in my life.

Ask any eldest daughter as I am or any INFJ personality type about caretaking and you’ll find it’s often a major role we play in life. For interest’s sake, I asked AI about INFJ caretaking and here’s what popped up with the why of it along with how to manage it. Unmanaged and you have burnout. As I recently shared with a friend, I try to help everyone else in my life get their needs met but that has to include my own. I try to remain cognizant that no one will win if I burn out so taking my own time needs to be a priority.

A daily meditation practice and at least a weekly yoga practice are some of the ways I’m maintaining my equanimity these days. I’ve also been reminded how much reading and walking in nature have always been a saving grace for me. I rarely had my head out of a book in my teen years, and I started walking distances regularly when I started high school. As the introvert who hated riding the school bus, I often walked home about two miles home from high school in a dress and heels as I attended a Catholic high school with a strict dress code. In retrospect that maybe wasn’t the wisest idea as I find I can’t bear to wear high heels decades later. Those activities have seen me through many things in life and they’re affordable and easily accessible as well. I also can’t stand to wear pantyhose, but I think that’s a sensory thing as I can’t stand the feel of the material on my skin and maybe no one wears them anymore, but I digress.

I found it interesting that the AI blurb mentions our wont to be compulsive fixers as a way to soothe our own distress at absorbing others’ discomfort. I’d agree that’s certainly part of it for me. I don’t know that it’s a bad thing except for, you know, those occasions when people don’t care to be ‘fixed’. Lol

The Psychology of INFJ Caretaking

Emotional Sponges: INFJs automatically absorb the moods and tensions of people around them, feeling others' pain as their own.

Compulsive Fixing: Managing and fixing external emotional distress functions as a form of self-preservation to soothe their own internal system.

Misplaced Guilt: INFJs often assume personal responsibility when someone nearby is unhappy, carrying an impossible burden to keep everyone emotionally balanced.Risks and Burnout

Exhaustion: Constant emotional monitoring drains their energy reserves, leading to physical and mental depletion.

Identity Loss: Prioritizing everyone else's needs causes INFJs to disconnect from their own identity, desires, and personal boundaries.

Managing and Recharging

Strict Boundaries: Learning to say "no" without guilt is essential for INFJ survival and energetic preservation.

Alone Time: Uninterrupted solitude ("white space") allows INFJs to process their own authentic feelings and recover from external stimuli.Sensory 

Grounding: Simple physical acts like warm baths, walks in nature, or deep breathing anchor them back into their physical bodies.

Hopefully you’re fitting some relaxation in.

Happy Sunday.

Peace.