This made me think of that wild exchange in the Gospel of Mary—when Peter asks, “What is the sin of the world?” and Jesus just drops the bomb: “There is no sin.” Only the illusion born from acting out of our corrupted nature. And what is that nature? It’s the default factory setting society installs—fear, craving, clinging. The three poisons on shuffle. Becoming more human isn’t about better performance metrics or spiritual brand alignment—it’s remembering the divine ground we’ve buried under personality quizzes and professional bios. Thank you for naming the ache so many of us feel but don’t know how to language.
In IFS there is Self. Self is not a part of you, but rather the core of you that is compassionate, curious, creative, calm, connected, courageous, confident and clear. Self has a huge window of tolerance :)
From a fellow INFJ, I have also frequently had the experience of not feeling like a I fit in anywhere. In recent years, this feeling has been helpful in a way in that I tend to reject or at least approach with caution any external form of identity. But it can also lead to a sense of not being tethered anywhere and that is scary at times…for me at least.
For what it’s worth, I believe you are making a huge dent!
So great to speak about Jesus. It doesn't matter what your faith is, Jesus does embody everything unique and amazing about each of us. The more we talk about him the more we talk about our individual selves for sure. So thank you. I enjoyed this article. I'd like to add that Astrology is a subject that works brilliantly with Psychology and Philosophy to elucidate the many in's and out's of each of us also, and for many provides a Truth, often with glaring proof when we really need one, that we are truly beings of Beauty. I loved the bit about caring for the world enough to live and make the changes needed through our engagement with it. Thanks Jim. I just started reading your substack. I happened upon it by accident. You efforts are awesome. Mena :)
I’m a latecomer to this realisation and it is so heartening to read the thoughts of others that resonate so deeply with your own. It’s a lonely place, on the outside and can often feel like you are denied the connections that others appear to make so easily.
While I think this is implicit in what you write here I would emphasise the need to find yourself in the collective much like the cellular analogy that Iain McGilchrist makes in The Matter With Things. He argues that there is consciousness at the cellular level with the consequent ability to achieve a single goal through independent but coordinated action.
It is tempting to write like a sage but the truth is I struggle like everyone to follow through on my thoughts which are like a candle, daring me to step into the shadow beyond the small circle of light it gives out.
A long time ago I left the handbrake on and I’ve been trying to locate it ever since. Posts like this one give me the impetus to keep looking. Many thanks!
Excellent thoughts. What you said about not quite fitting into atheism because you want to try to explore ultimates made me think of "atheist" J. L. Schellenberg and his idea that we are so young as a species and have so much farther to evolve that we need to be exploring what he calls a "nonpersonal ultimate" for millennia to come if not millions of years. He floats this a little in his "Hiddenness Argument" book but goes into it more in "Progressive Atheism" and "Evolutionary Religion". Have you read Schellenberg? Do you like him? I think you would find him very interesting and perhaps a fellow traveler.
So much of this piece resonates with me. Some friends I've newly made and I have been talking about this concept of true self. We all came from the same high control sect. Many of us are way into our adulthood, some raising kids of their own, and are flailing to figure out who we truly are, now that the corset of what we were part of is removed. There's lots here for us to hold onto while navigating this unfamiliar dark hallway. Thanks for writing it.
As someone else commented, there is a concept of Self in Internal family systems, that I found very helpful in resolving some of the existential angst that followed leaving that high control sect. After years of reading and searching it gave me a paradigm that made sense. Basically it's about recognizing the existence of the beautiful essence in every human and making more space for it in our lives.
Thank you for this. I have spent the last few weeks (having finally recovered enough from a year of horrible illness) preparing and leading a service about Biblical wisdom for my Unitarian Universalist church (not our usual message!), as well as participating in Baha’i meetings. I found myself thinking “oh I wish I could have read this before my recent preaching” which turned into “no, I’m glad I read it right after, so I could share it with people as a sharing of partially similar thought that was totally independent”. And I will be sharing it indeed.
This article is filled with so many of the same systems of awareness and personal voyage I have looked into. My brain, trainings and lived experience is always looking for the dots that I know connects them. It will be in those links that we will be allowed to be diverse and yet not disconnected.
I think Carl Rogers got close with what drives human behavior in it being a sense of alignment with safety, belongingness, self-esteem, and freedom but he was from a world looking at the pathological sides of them.
The core driver might not be happiness and pleasure but peace and I read Jesus as trying to teach this as better than the desire for pleasuring ourselves because he knew human life, especially if trying to integrate our divine awareness or God consciousness, was never going to be without pain.
We are sensory beings with flesh , magnetism and electricity constantly being passed between us, around us and emitted from us.
Maintenance of this, in and of itself ( aka health) is painful. It is hard and demanding of our patience and persistence, protection and provision.
Ultimately, we should be happy regardless of level of pleasure or pain but we do not need to be at peace with pain or pleasure. So maybe becoming a better human is really “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you” . It may be becoming a more peace moving human.
Can you remember how you were before your first thought Jim? Do wonder what you are between two thoughts? Or the allegorical meaning of "the place of a Skull?" Or R. D. Laing's intuitive, "we are all in a post-hypnotic 'trance' induced in early infancy?" Do you embody the earth-turning 'optical-illusion' of the Sum appearing to rise above a horizon? And the cognitive-illusions in the words sun, sunrise, and sunset?
Do you embody the Hypostatic Union of your participation in the Divine, that occurs with the 'conflation' of Subjective & Objective Reality, in place of a Skull? Do you recognise the generational folly of assuming you understand more than your ancestors? Though they didn't have Wifi, did they have Eyefi and wrote clever proverbs about human self-deception? Like " wisdom is more excellent for those who see the Sun 🌞"
This made me think of that wild exchange in the Gospel of Mary—when Peter asks, “What is the sin of the world?” and Jesus just drops the bomb: “There is no sin.” Only the illusion born from acting out of our corrupted nature. And what is that nature? It’s the default factory setting society installs—fear, craving, clinging. The three poisons on shuffle. Becoming more human isn’t about better performance metrics or spiritual brand alignment—it’s remembering the divine ground we’ve buried under personality quizzes and professional bios. Thank you for naming the ache so many of us feel but don’t know how to language.
In IFS there is Self. Self is not a part of you, but rather the core of you that is compassionate, curious, creative, calm, connected, courageous, confident and clear. Self has a huge window of tolerance :)
This is brilliantly thought, felt and communicated. Thank you.
From a fellow INFJ, I have also frequently had the experience of not feeling like a I fit in anywhere. In recent years, this feeling has been helpful in a way in that I tend to reject or at least approach with caution any external form of identity. But it can also lead to a sense of not being tethered anywhere and that is scary at times…for me at least.
For what it’s worth, I believe you are making a huge dent!
Thanks, John! I appreciate your encouragement and wisdom.
So great to speak about Jesus. It doesn't matter what your faith is, Jesus does embody everything unique and amazing about each of us. The more we talk about him the more we talk about our individual selves for sure. So thank you. I enjoyed this article. I'd like to add that Astrology is a subject that works brilliantly with Psychology and Philosophy to elucidate the many in's and out's of each of us also, and for many provides a Truth, often with glaring proof when we really need one, that we are truly beings of Beauty. I loved the bit about caring for the world enough to live and make the changes needed through our engagement with it. Thanks Jim. I just started reading your substack. I happened upon it by accident. You efforts are awesome. Mena :)
Obi-Wan Kenobi is also said to be an INFJ. Keep on challenging those "scared cows" lol..
I love this so much! 🥰🙌💕🇨🇦
We who have always been on the sidelines looking in…
We who were bullied and still stood up for others
We who were told we Care Too Much
We Are Here 💫🕊️🫶❤️🩹
Hi, Cassandra! I am grateful for your encouragement… who you are… and who you are for the world. :)
I’m a latecomer to this realisation and it is so heartening to read the thoughts of others that resonate so deeply with your own. It’s a lonely place, on the outside and can often feel like you are denied the connections that others appear to make so easily.
While I think this is implicit in what you write here I would emphasise the need to find yourself in the collective much like the cellular analogy that Iain McGilchrist makes in The Matter With Things. He argues that there is consciousness at the cellular level with the consequent ability to achieve a single goal through independent but coordinated action.
It is tempting to write like a sage but the truth is I struggle like everyone to follow through on my thoughts which are like a candle, daring me to step into the shadow beyond the small circle of light it gives out.
A long time ago I left the handbrake on and I’ve been trying to locate it ever since. Posts like this one give me the impetus to keep looking. Many thanks!
The Soil of Sacred Living The Life of Unconditional Love
https://open.substack.com/pub/herbiesview/p/the-soil-of-the-sacred-living-a-life?r=5tot8z&utm_medium=ios
🙌🏻 Amen!
Excellent thoughts. What you said about not quite fitting into atheism because you want to try to explore ultimates made me think of "atheist" J. L. Schellenberg and his idea that we are so young as a species and have so much farther to evolve that we need to be exploring what he calls a "nonpersonal ultimate" for millennia to come if not millions of years. He floats this a little in his "Hiddenness Argument" book but goes into it more in "Progressive Atheism" and "Evolutionary Religion". Have you read Schellenberg? Do you like him? I think you would find him very interesting and perhaps a fellow traveler.
So much of this piece resonates with me. Some friends I've newly made and I have been talking about this concept of true self. We all came from the same high control sect. Many of us are way into our adulthood, some raising kids of their own, and are flailing to figure out who we truly are, now that the corset of what we were part of is removed. There's lots here for us to hold onto while navigating this unfamiliar dark hallway. Thanks for writing it.
As someone else commented, there is a concept of Self in Internal family systems, that I found very helpful in resolving some of the existential angst that followed leaving that high control sect. After years of reading and searching it gave me a paradigm that made sense. Basically it's about recognizing the existence of the beautiful essence in every human and making more space for it in our lives.
Thank you for this. I have spent the last few weeks (having finally recovered enough from a year of horrible illness) preparing and leading a service about Biblical wisdom for my Unitarian Universalist church (not our usual message!), as well as participating in Baha’i meetings. I found myself thinking “oh I wish I could have read this before my recent preaching” which turned into “no, I’m glad I read it right after, so I could share it with people as a sharing of partially similar thought that was totally independent”. And I will be sharing it indeed.
Love that Lorde quote! 🌸💕🌸
This article is filled with so many of the same systems of awareness and personal voyage I have looked into. My brain, trainings and lived experience is always looking for the dots that I know connects them. It will be in those links that we will be allowed to be diverse and yet not disconnected.
I think Carl Rogers got close with what drives human behavior in it being a sense of alignment with safety, belongingness, self-esteem, and freedom but he was from a world looking at the pathological sides of them.
The core driver might not be happiness and pleasure but peace and I read Jesus as trying to teach this as better than the desire for pleasuring ourselves because he knew human life, especially if trying to integrate our divine awareness or God consciousness, was never going to be without pain.
We are sensory beings with flesh , magnetism and electricity constantly being passed between us, around us and emitted from us.
Maintenance of this, in and of itself ( aka health) is painful. It is hard and demanding of our patience and persistence, protection and provision.
Ultimately, we should be happy regardless of level of pleasure or pain but we do not need to be at peace with pain or pleasure. So maybe becoming a better human is really “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you” . It may be becoming a more peace moving human.
Can you remember how you were before your first thought Jim? Do wonder what you are between two thoughts? Or the allegorical meaning of "the place of a Skull?" Or R. D. Laing's intuitive, "we are all in a post-hypnotic 'trance' induced in early infancy?" Do you embody the earth-turning 'optical-illusion' of the Sum appearing to rise above a horizon? And the cognitive-illusions in the words sun, sunrise, and sunset?
Do you embody the Hypostatic Union of your participation in the Divine, that occurs with the 'conflation' of Subjective & Objective Reality, in place of a Skull? Do you recognise the generational folly of assuming you understand more than your ancestors? Though they didn't have Wifi, did they have Eyefi and wrote clever proverbs about human self-deception? Like " wisdom is more excellent for those who see the Sun 🌞"