Additional Exploration
Isabel Myers believed you need to understand your “best process” — your dominant function — to truly understand yourself and claim your innate gifts. The processes she is referring to are: Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking, and Feeling- one of these will be your best and favorite process in Psychological Type terms.
Isabel suggested an excellent way of exploring the four functions was thinking of them as occupants of a house. In her own words:
One way I like to look at the four processes is to see them as four people living under the same roof… and the favorite process is the head of the household …
When you understand more about your ‘house’ and your ‘people’, you come to a new appreciation for who you are as a person, at your core. You come to understand your gifts and what you contribute to the world. You see your flaws and blind spots in a more charitable light and exercise greater self-kindness as a result.
From such a place of confidence and congruency, you can communicate more generously with others and start to apply your understanding of Type to so many areas of your life – including your style.
Additional Reading
1.Who Lives In Your House? Article gives 3 examples – Jill, Imogen, and Jane share their own “households” – their leading/dominant functions and a sketch of their gifts.
2.Why You Are Not The Sum of Your Letters Article gives you the leading (or dominant) function for your Style Type (what Isabel Myers refers to as favorite/best process).
3.The Gifts.PDF for your Style Type (see Module 4 PDF, Page 7).
You can download this exploration here if you wish to print it out.
Who Lives in Your House
REFLECT AND RESPOND:
- Who is the ‘head of your household’ – your favorite/best process (your dominant or leading function)? Is it Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking, or Feeling?
- If you were to describe this head of your household, what would you say? (Remember that Type terms can differ from their definitions and use in popular parlance. For example, iNtuition in Type terms differs from intuition in popular parlance, Feeling is not feelings, and so on). You can do this in detail or at an overview level – whatever you prefer!
- What gifts does the head of your household bring?
- Over the coming weeks (between now and when Module 6 drops, say) keep a eye out for your best/favorite process (your leading function): be gently aware of its presence and where, when and how it shows up in your life (you may wish to journal on this). Treat this as an interesting experiment – your learning door is open, keep a light touch.
About Pacing of the Type Modules and Material
We explore Type again and in greater depth in Module 6. There is a deliberate flow to this program this way- we don’t want you to feel you are “drinking from a fire hydrant” so have stepped out the Modules and Explorations around your Psychological Type so that you can layer your learning and start to apply the Module material to yourself and your life as we progress through the program.
If all this ‘Type talk’ is brand new to you, please take your time, be patient and kind with yourself, and remember to go at your own pace. If you’ve been exploring your Type for some time, remember that others are brand new to it; keep your aperture wide for new discoveries to add to what you already understand about your Type and how it applies in your life.
These are complex concepts so remember to only take on board what you can now in Module 4 and leave everything else until later in the program. There’s no need to try to learn everything about the dynamic nature of your Type (your leading and supporting functions, ie) all at once – this is a long (often lifelong) process.
