Diary: A Random Realisation

20/12/2016

~Diary Entry~

********MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR READERS!********

A random realisation occurred to me the other week when I was recording myself for a friend…

Not sure how many fellow INTJs can relate but I found a further specific reason why the communication aspects of the INTJ ‘sucks’ to an extent.

The ‘situation’ was that whenever I was given an hypothetical scenario to play around with or to think about, my brain instantly conjures up a series of mini scenes related to the said topic.

With the above in mind, the brain has to go back all the way to the beginning to attempt to describe each scenes individually; whereas most people have 1 or 2 scenes to work with and to describe in full at that precise moment.

Now, this is one of the aspects where I think most of INTJs stall (more often than normal) in their speech pattern, is slow to speak, have a delayed reaction and don’t describe something accurately enough; I’m sure a lot of INTJs have experienced thinking of an AWESOME comeback to a conversation days later because you know that some conversations are going to be reeling in your minds for days afterwards.

Again, having said the above, by default, personally, I choose the simplest scenes or the first scenes to work with, but even then, not being able to describe the scenes perfectly or even 10% is pretty frustrating – this further highlights the pausing factors in speech as well as the delayed reactions.

Expressing yourself can be hard man…

(The annoyance is real)

Seeing the above picture, you really can’t get frustrated at people who does not understand the magic that is in your heads, I mean, just look at that abomination of the resulting description…hahaha~

Having noted this with my friend, a nice selection of suggestions was given to me but the main ones for fellow INTJs that can relate to myself would be to:

~ Relax and BREATHE – Relaxing the brain helps it to not go into overdrive; such as thinking how to describe something, what facts the person already know (so that you don’t have to regurgitate info), scanning through the various scenes in your head and picking one to work with or choosing the right words to use effectively.

The above is just the few things that happens and honestly, IT IS TOO MUCH even if your face is on neutral. So, just RELAX. You have to let go of wanting to describe everything correctly and perfectly; basically, just learn to be in the moment and word out the first thoughts that pops into your head – it’s hard I know because the chances are, random flits of vague images are probably scuttling through your mind whilst you are reading this now (or whatever you are doing).

As my friend so eloquently puts it: “Remind yourself how insignificant everything is in the greater scheme of things, we’re just tiny dots on a tiny dot orbiting a tiny dot amongst a trillion tiny dots~~~ so just do your stuff and enjoy right”.

So just have fun with whatever you need to say.

~ Concentrate – Rolling off from the last sentence, relax your brain and concentrate on one thing, thought, image, scenes etc that you are thinking of. See the whole picture of your scene, see the minute details of the scene and actually be in the moment to feel your thoughts. Use words that make you feel the scenario; for example:

Having seen this photo, do ignore other impending thoughts that suddenly appeared in your mind, instead, concentrate on this…IMAGINE that you are the person in red, how would you describe the following:

• Your surroundings – what you see (your fellow climbers, the ever stretching creaking walk boards, smooth yet gritty and beige rock faces everywhere);
• What you are doing – what you touch and feel (the metallic coldness of the chains, the trembling in your knees, the sharp and wispy coldness of the wind);
• What you are feeling – what you are emotionally feeling and thinking (nervous, sweaty and maybe thinking “is this safe?” or “I regret my life decisions”)

The above helps to push away other relevant thoughts whilst you concentrate on one scene that embodies a wealth of thoughts and sensory stimuli to help you explain yourself thoroughly whilst being in the moment.

~ Improvisation – This you can practiced anywhere, for example, whenever you make a call to book an appointment or order something etc, DO NOT write any notes down or any sentences down for you to read off of (if anything, write 1 key word for your brain to work with). Just let the words flow out of your mouth and don’t worry about making too much sense or that what you are saying is not straight to the point…also, don’t worry about people getting bored okay? I find myself and most INTJ youtubers apologizing for being boring or thinking that they are not interesting. The thing is, if you can make the other person understand with all the waffling and pausing that you are doing, you are making progress with your brain and speech ‘co-ordination’. With everything, it is just practice.

~ Record Yourself! – Yes it’s awkward at first. Yes it’s very cringe worthy at first. Yes, it will take a few goes just to say hi to yourself (or someone else) and yes it will feel moronic at first. So do this…find a subject/ topic that you are interested in and find a target audience to speak to via imagination – heck, the audience can be yourself.

You’d be surprised at how much information you can pick up about yourself just by looking at yourself. How do you move? What do you do a lot of? What is your expression like? You will notice things about yourself that you never did before – plus, it’s an awesome way to see what other people/ strangers see and hear when you are around them.

~ Child’s play – If you have a child at your ‘disposal’, then it’s time to put them to use and as ridiculous as it sounds, this will be the hardest step out of all of the above mentioned suggestions. Why? Because now you actually have someone (even though it is just a child) that you have to explain your thoughts and ideas to. If the child don’t understand what you just said or described then you know that further work has to be done.

Anyways, that is about it for my mini realisation, maybe the above suggestions will help to improve your speech fluidity or at least, allows you to respond on time and in the moment.

***I hope you ALL had or is having a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS indeed and may there be many many years to come for you and your most LOVED ones =^-^=

 

Geomeun Goyangi

P.s I’m working on an INTJ series =^-^= Happy watching!