8 Personality Fixations In ExxP Relationships | Podcast 584

If that button looks interesting to push, I wanna have the freedom to push it. If that place on the map looks interesting, I want the freedom to be able to go travel there. Anything that would be akin to almost like a Peter Pan complex. In the case of freedom, it's like, okay, you're allowed to do anything you want, but you're gonna have to accept the consequences of your act. Sometimes in the pursuit of freedom we're robbing from our future freedom to give ourselves current freedom.

Podcast. My name is Joe Mark Witch. And I'm Antonia Dodge. So this week we are continuing a short series. Well, it's a medium sized series probably. Five total episodes. We're in episode number two. In the last episode, we talked about this concept that we wrote in our book, the Firm Model. It stands for Freedom, Invulnerability, Rightness, and Management. It's an acronym.

for how personality types will cluster around one of those four fixations in their life, where they have a tendency to cluster around one of those four fixations. We introduced the concept last week, we went through all of the sixteen types and showed where they cluster and kind of gave you a map, an overview. And then we're gonna spend the next four episodes going deeper into each one of these.

in the acronym, F I R M in the Firm Model, and we're gonna unpack A little bit more detail, a little more nuance, and maybe talk about some of the counterintuitive ways this could show up for somebody too.

Yeah. Well we're talking about it specifically in the context of relationships. There you go. Yeah. How does it show up in our relationships? Like if we have a fixation on something, how is that going to potentially create A little bit of discord, maybe some tension between people. Yep. And uh and

How do we get to the other I mean, uh the the big question of course is how do we get to the other side? And the first thing is to be aware. The reason why we want to go into maybe more counterintuitive examples of how it can show up is Uh, even those of us who have maybe done a bit of or a fair bit of work on ourselves. and think it's important to be more seasoned and we're trying to be more mature. We might not resonate with the standard

Descriptions of how the firm fixations can show up and and in relationships as well. Yeah. But we might be able to find in ourselves some of the trickier ones. The sneakier aspects of it. So we want to go through because we we already did an like you said an overview and talked about it in relationships. Now we want to talk about some like sneaky ways. that affirm uh that your fixation, your personality type's fixation can smuggle itself into your relationship.

Okay, a couple of things. If you want more information about the firm, it's I think it's chapter twenty-two in our book, so you can go get the book and you can read about it there. You can also listen to some the last week's episode. We talked about it there in relationship, in fra in the framework of relationship.

And then if you need a little bit of a guide for how we look at personality types here, maybe you're new to personality hacker, we're gonna go into what's called the Jungian cognitive functions as we talk about this. That's a mouthful, but basically this is the building blocks. This is where the Myers-Briggs system came from.

It's Carl Jung developed the framework for personality the Myers Brake system was built on top of, and that's what we're using the original Carl Jung's original eight mental processes of learning information and making decisions. And um if you go over to personalityhacker.com forward slash car model, we have some materials on that. We use a uh simple framework, a mental model that looks like a car, a driver, copilot, ten-year-old, three-year-old.

And if you wanna catch yourself up, that's a great place to go over and uh and get started to know what we're talking about today. Yeah. Okay, so let's start with the first one. All right. Let's uh we're gonna dedicate this episode to F.

in the firm model, which uh is freedom. It's a freedom fixation. That's right. So what's a freedom fixation? Well, it's fixated on freedom at at uh freedom even when it doesn't make sense. Yeah. You're fixated on it. Even when it might even rob you of freedom, you still have a compulsion or a fixation to go toward unfettered freedom. That's right.

And this is this is clustered around the EP types. So ENTP, ENFP, ESTP, and ESFP tend to, when they are fixated on something, they tend to fixate on freedom, keeping that freedom and optionality in front of them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's really a desire for autonomy, sovereignty. Uh it's a desire to be able to explore whatever is holding your attention at the moment, anything that you're curious And the reason why EP types tend to have a fixation on freedom.

is uh because of their dominant or driver cognitive function. It's either extroverted intuition or exploration in the case of ENP type. or extroverted sensing or sensation in uh the case of ESP types. And both of these functions are extroverted, so they're outward facing, and they're what's called perceiving functions or information gathering, learning, right? Try to kind of figure out how the world works.

And so if we're pre-wired to have our first function, our dominant cognitive function, our driver, what Carl Jung um said that most of us would spend our time describing about ourselves is that first function. If it's a function that wants to learn as much as it can in the outside world, you could see why if we're trying to protect our ability to do that.

we would um w we would have a compulsion to not be told no, right? Like if that if that button looks interesting to push, I wanna have the freedom to push it. If that, you know, that place on the map looks interesting, I want the freedom to be able to go travel. If this concept is an interesting concept, I want the freedom to be able to talk about it and ruminate and brainstorm around.

I just want I want to have freedom to explore, whether that's exploring actual physical terrain or objects, w uh, the ability to explore what my body can do, the ex the ability to explore all of the different senses of life. the ability to explore whatever my brain comes up with or any inventive idea. I just want the freedom to be able to pursue it. Everybody needs this freedom at different times in their life. EPs are focused on it because it's like setting up our lives the best.

for us. We both have EP preferences. If you're EP listening, you know that things are emergent in your life. You don't always exactly know what the plan's gonna be sometimes. And it's you get into motion and the plan reveals itself emergently as you start to move.

So you're like, well, why don't wouldn't I set up my entire life to accommodate that? That's when I'm my best self. That's when I do my best thinking. I see the world more clearly that way. I feel free. I feel like myself in that moment. So I'm gonna try to set up my life. to accommodate that. So that I think the intent is good because You're putting life on your terms. And that's what we all want to do.

But what happens when you enter a space or something in life ha is is there that requires the opposite of freedom. Maybe it requires commitment, or requires requires stability, or requires you to Focus in and not actually continue to open up emergently or make plans into the future. There's a lot of things in life that don't.

They don't accommodate freedom like that. They need like plans. If you're going to a wedding next year, you can't just decide the day before if you're gonna go or not. You need to let the bride and groom know, hey, I'm gonna be at your wedding next year. I can make plans. You might have to fly to it or or save money for it.

So not everything in life can be emergently accessed in this E P fashion right in front of you in a free way. Yeah. So I think that's where it breaks down is it's it's a good trait to wanna put things on your terms, bring things to your sandbox, yeah. As long as It works that way, but there's so much in life that can't be put on your terms.

Well and to your point earlier, you said that the fixation is a desire for freedom even when it robs freedom later. And that's the that's sort of the paradox of all of these fixations. is too much of it actually ends up creating problems down like l uh a removal of it later on. And so in the case of freedom, it's like, okay, you're allowed to do anything you want, but you're gonna have to accept the consequences of your act.

And sometimes in the pursuit of freedom, we're not thinking long term. We're not taking we're not thinking about implications or what this is gonna look down the line. And so we're robbing from our future freedom to give ourselves current freedom. And uh and and then, you know, obviously that's a problem. Obviously that means it's it's like the snake eating its tail. So too much of anything is a bad thing, right? And um and a fixation means taking it too far.

And so the the important thing is that we become aware of how we're doing Now, even if we are a a more mature person, we might find it s it's it's almost like it gets smuggled. But the usual way that uh uh well l let me first talk about the good that comes with it because otherwise this is gonna be a really depressing episode. It's like all the bad things that come along with being an EP The good is that people with EP preferences tend to be curious. Adaptable, spontaneous,

uh resilient, right? Um they tend to be willing to take risks and jump on opportunities. Uh they are oftentimes um s sort of like these uh these intrepid explorers, right? In whatever way you want to describe that. And so th those are the positive attributes that come along with it. The negative attributes for somebody who has uh like a a uh like I would call it like more usual relationship with this fixation or w the way it manifests when the person

You know, the hasn't really done a lot of work. And and especially in the context of what we're talking about relationships. is that they might be a little bit of com a little bit commitment phobic, right? They might really struggle to settle down. They might struggle to um to to choose just one person. Uh, they might get really excited at the beginning of a relationship but then find themselves feeling really stuck later on.

or just not willing to show up for their partner, like wanting to, you know, go pursue fun things or interesting things as opposed to taking care of the more mundane

sort of living l living the less interesting aspects of life day to day, which is really where most of life happens. Yeah. So um so that's the usual relationship that people have. Yes. But it can get it can get bad. It can get stuck you can get stuck around it. And we talked a little bit about some of the

The normal ways this shows up. In this episode we want to go a little deeper into a layer. Do you want to remind people of kind of this general way that, you know, this freedom fixation could show up before we talk about more of the nuances, maybe the counterintuitive way? Beyond yeah, beyond just like the commitment phobic.

Yeah, I mean I didn't know if you had anything else to add before I didn't want to jump into this and then you have to backtrack I mean, yeah, like you're just okay what what comes up for you if somebody was going to be, you know, to have a freedom fixation in terms of relationships? Like the usual stuff would come up, right? Like kind of maybe m maybe really struggling to like commit to one partner, really struggling to or maybe really struggling to commit to like a single

you know, a single career path and so not really ever making any attraction. So really struggling to take care of the family or perhaps you know, having a hard time like s sort of buckling down and raising kids or really showing up for your children or like basically uh anything that would be akin to almost like a Peter Pan complex. If we have too much of a freedom fixation, that's usually

And all of these are like sugar. I mean sugar our brain needs sugar, sucrose, right? And it's important to have some, but we our modern glucose, excuse me. our modern um society has made so much sugar available that it's kind of a problem for us. Right? We have too much sugar. It's too abundant. Right. So anything in its proper

you know, proper usage is fine. And so for like the freedom fixation, there's noble reasons for this, it's a good thing. It's just if it becomes or the the intention for freedom, if it becomes a fixation, that's when it's for us.

It can hijack a lot. So let's talk about some of the we have eight ways here where this can show up a little counterintuitive. So let's just go down through this list and this should spark some thoughts in you if you are either an EP person or maybe you have a EP in your life. Pay attention to some of these more n nuanced things and please don't weaponize this against the E Ps you love. Right. Gently approach.

Well, it'd be coming for you later in a later episode. So if you're not an EP type and you weaponize it, then I mean maybe your maybe your partner isn't a isn't a personality hacker podcast listener and you can weaponize all sorts of stuff against someone. Uh no, I just wanted to make sure that we're clear when we say counterintuitive, we mean ways that even seasoned EP types might find themselves evidencing this fixation in relationship. So these are like the sneakier ways that it can come.

And I think the first one's gonna speak directly to this. You're gonna know exactly what we're talking about when I say this. So, number one is overcommitting to many small things. to avoid the big responsibility to commit to, right? So

You have like this, oh look, no, I'm committing. I'm committing to all these things, but you could sort of get out of them. You're not really that committed, and you're committing to tons of them, so it's very diffused and maybe not very deep to avoid that maybe one big commitment. That somebody's asking of you or life is asking of you. I think this is very counterintuitive, but it's a sneaky way that EPs can still maintain that freedom.

Yeah, well I think in particular it's gonna show up as like the big thing that's being avoided is sometimes emotional availability, right? Like really feeling deeply intimate with the person. And another way, uh, if it's not emotional availability, maybe it's like having difficult conversations, like not wanting to be pinned down to have a So the fr the desire to be or like the ability to be avoidant. Right. And but not

not necessarily appearing like you are being avoidant because you're so willing to do all these other things. Maybe you're willing to like you said, willing to show up in a hundred different little ways, but the way that your partner needs you to show up. which would indicate taking things to the next level or really being willing to be intimate or or whatever is the thing that feels the most uncomfortable to the freedom fixation individual, then that's the thing that's being

Number two is intellectualizing or rationalizing emotional disabilities. So like no no I I have good reasons why I'm emotionally distant and you can explain it away, but really the explanation, the rela rationalization is to avoid the commitment, avoid being more connected. It's to keep that freedom in play.

Yeah. Well and and it sounds so noble too. It's like, well, I think I think love is between two independent people who go their own way, right? Like or or or we don't need to have be in each other's pockets all the time. So it's this idea of like, well, if we're both independent people, then that's actually the healthiest relationship. Not recognizing once again the the need to be well, how would they say interdependent?

Or really being willing to do that deep emotional commitment because you're because of the noble, you know, well, we don't want to be codependent. Almost saying that a deep emotional commitment, like likening it to codependence. No, no, we need to be independent. And uh and so it sounds good, right? It sounds like you're trying to take your relationship or like be really like showing up for your relationship as two independent people.

And and for the most part, I mean what's so sneaky about these is that They actually on their own aren't necessarily bad ideas. That's why the person has to check in with themselves and make sure that they're that they're not actually being avoidant, right? They're not actually trying to get away from a deeper level of commitment. Because there's nothing wrong with saying that I think a relationship should have strong independent people in it.

It is though if you're using that as a rationalization for emotional display. So we're talking about the intent behind this. The things themselves aren't necessarily bad or wrong or even a problem. It really is something you have to check in with yourself in your relationship if you're EP if you have E P preferences or somebody you in are in relationship with.

Um, like you said, two strong independent people. That we're not suggesting no one person has to be codependent on the other person, right? Yeah. It's just this could be used as a way to keep your freedom. That's very counterintuitive, sneaky way to do it.

The other one is prioritizing oh, excuse me. The other one that number three is staying in a relationship too long. but on your own terms. So it's almost like this you're yeah, look, I'm committed. But the commitment is and I also just get to call all the shots. So I still maintain my freedom'cause I'm running everything. I'm the dominant party here. I just run everything. I make all the decisions maybe.

And so it doesn't give the other person a lot of a lot of leeway. And so, yeah, look, I'm committed. Yeah, but you're also in charge. So it's easy for you to be committed. Yeah, and I don't think it's necessarily in charge by being commanding. No. So it wouldn't be like the management fixation. It's actually more on your own terms in the sense of like finding loopholes. You range. Yeah, exactly. It's like uh

Like I'll stay like I'll stay with you as long as we don't merge bank accounts or long as like whatever the terms are, you might say. And I'm not saying you have to or not have to merge bank accounts. Nothing we're saying is the right way to have a relationship. Yeah. We're saying these are some things that could come up in conversation, for example.

Yes, or uh not technically breaking up but no longer behaving with the same level of intimacy or partnership as in uh just sort of subtly disengaging. And so you're technically still quote unquote committed, like on paper, you might stay with the person you're in a relationship with, but you're definitely not treating the relationship the same and you're not nurturing it or pouring it into it.

You're just sort of letting it almost like letting it die of a lack of oxygen over time. Yeah. And um and so it's it's uh it's not being very honest with oneself. And so it's like uh uh uh I it doesn't appear commitment phobic. But it it might very well be evidence.

So this one we have to explain or go in a little bit deeper for for people to understand. Number four, prioritizing personal growth over shared growth. And that seems noble, right? You you can't really control another person or force them to grow, so it seems like that's the right thing to do. I why I what can else can I do but focus on myself and grow myself? So let's explain that.

Yeah, well I think a good way of seeing this and um we have a friend who does relationship coaching. Her name is Annie Lala. Uh and you can look her up on Instagram. She's pretty great. She uh she's a person who is part of our um are empowered for INFJs and INFP series. Um and She talks about how there's actually thr there there's the uh there's three entities in a relationship. There's you, there's your partner, and then there's the relationship itself that's an entity.

And all three of them need nurturing. And she mentioned, and I thought this was brilliant, that there's one person there that's a champion of the we and one person's there there that's the champion of the me. And it's the me of both both individuals in the relationship. So one partner makes sure that the entity of the relationship is being nurtured and one person is there to make sure that the individuals are nurtured.

She's noticed this as a pattern in healthy relationships. Yes. Not saying you have to construct your relationship this way. She's just noticed through coaching, this is typically how it ends up. A healthy couple, there's one person that's their eye focused on the individual and making sure each individual is cared for and then one person has their eye on the relationship itself as almost like that's its own individual. Yes. A third individual it's been that's been created.

Exactly. And so with that frame in mind If you're a an i if you're a person who's into personal development or personal growth and again, I still I still just describe or I define personal development as accelerated maturity. That's how I see it. It's like life didn't give me all the lessons I needed.

And so I'm feeling the pain of that. Right. Like I should there are certain things I should have known by now, but I just don't. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna accelerate my growth really quickly. I'm gonna get into personal development. I'm gonna fund those areas and then I'm gonna accelerate my growth in those areas. And then try to play some catch up.

And if you are a more of a me person, as in like you feel like your personal development is important, and you also could be in the relationship championing that for the other individual, making sure their personal development is also important to them, right? And really um supporting them. But you forget that the entity of relationship also needs a lot of times accelerated maturity because we're bringing our stuff into the relationship. You know, we're bringing our own baggage in.

And the relationship is gonna take a the entity of the relationship is gonna take a hit. So a smuggle is being really super into my growth and maybe even encouraging you to do your growth. But again, it's kind of like the a relationship has two strong independent people. If it's not also being poured into the entity itself, then are you really committed to the entity? Right. If you don't want the entity also to be going through its own evolutions and its own growth.

Are you really pouring into it? Are you seeing it as something that you are committed to? Not just the other person, but the entity.

Let's go to number five. Conflict avoidance or soft exits. So let's explain this too. That's that could be confusing. I mean conflict avoidance, I know what that means. What do you mean by soft what do we mean by soft exits? Well, I think it's uh try not taking responsibility for the problems in the relationship. Right. Um, like if when there's relational struggles.

just sort of disengag you know, again, disengaging, sort of uh maybe just not continuing the conversation that needs to be continued. Um maybe even getting a little passive aggressive, you know, like or or feeling like, Well, I tried and they just didn't listen to me. And W the reason why this is part of a freedom fixation is because there's a there's uh really what's being avoided is having to pour resources into a single thing for a time.

I think that's really what freedom is. Freedom freedom is not just I mean, we don't want the world to say no to us. Right. That's a big part of it. I just I just wanna be able to do what I wanna do. I don't want the world stopping me from the things that I wanna do. But I think it's also I don't want to have to pour time, attention, and resource into something that isn't interesting to me. And so

It's uh you know, there's like that that cost of specialization. When we are focused on something, when the when something requires our focus, we're going to take our life force and we're going to to direct it towards the thing that needs focus. And I think a part of what freedom fixation is is like not ever wanting to be trapped into having to pour life force into something that isn't what we want to focus on at that time.

We want the freedom to be able to pivot, turn our attention, be adaptable. You know what I mean? It's like we want we want to be able to pour our attention wherever we want to pour it. Yeah. But when in when a relationship needs our attention, And it's not what we want to be pouring into at that time.

Commitment or not being freedom-oriented in that moment means buckling down and doing the responsible adult thing, which is pouring attention to it anyway, because there's a thing here that needs to be nurtured and fostered. There's a thing that we already said yes to, which is asking something of us that may or may not be convenient in that moment. But it's still it ha it's a need. And so, uh, the subtle thing is to

i is to l is to sort of let these problems hang or float or like the soft exit of the conversation. Sort of diffuse the energy when really the the the entity needs focus. Right. It needs us to not just kind of let things fester or be problems because because we want to put our attention elsewhere. Like it it needs us to to commit to it, like to actually commit.

And so uh a sign of this could just be sort of getting, you know, sort of like almost diffused if that makes sense. Yeah. It's like not doing the the f the the work and the attention that it needs, but sort of N not bringing a lot of attention to the fact also that we're not putting attention to it. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Okay, number six, counterintuitive away this freedom fixation can show up, particularly in relationships, is keeping your options open, right? Having a a future escape hatch ready and waiting in the wings in case GTFO real quick. So basically it's it's having an escape route planned or available or sort of just waiting for you at all times. Yes.

Yeah, like I I I can leave it any time. Now a person should I mean, I don't think it's unhealthy to know that you can as a free moral agent leave at any time. I think that that's okay that's an okay thing for you to think. If you feel fully trapped in this situation, just the experience of being trapped, and it doesn't matter who you are, whether you have freedom of fixation or not, just the experience of feeling trapped will make a situation feel intolerable.

Right. Just going like oh I don't have any other options. Well I hate this. Yeah. I think anybody that's stuck in that feels they are trapped in a relationship that's not right for them. I think they should have the freedom or permission to be able to make changes. That's right.

And alter that arrangement. What is it? A friend of ours said the only right in a relationship you have is to leave. Everything else is negotiable. Yeah. I think that's a really interesting framework. It's like you have the right to leave, and that's the one right we have in relationship, is to not be in that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. I think he says everything else is a negotiation. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the that's the agreement you've made is to be in relationship. Everything after that you've talked about and you've constructed it. Right. So I don't think it's wrong to think I can leave if I need to. Of course. But using that as a self soother Or you have a bunch of like DMs filled up with people you're talking to that you're sort of interested in not right now,'cause you're with this person but Right.

You're like three people on the line and you're like c you know, having conversations is like they're all options. That's more what we're talking about. Yes. Like that could that'll erode your current relationship. Absolutely. And you might be doing it again with good intent, just like I just need these options here so I feel safe in this relationship but There might be a cost you're not counting here, a counterintuitive cost to that.

Yeah. Well and even just like logistically it you know, are you hesitant to do things like merge bank accounts or make big financial decisions together? Even when it makes sense. Yeah. You know, not like not too early. Obviously we're not like and merge bank accounts right away. On the first date. Yeah. Well and there's something to be said for like some people don't have bank accounts merged for other reasons. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there's it's not like any of it is

the right or wrong way to be in relationship. Once again, it's are is are is this the situation the way it is because you're actually being avoidant of commitment, right? Are you actually trying to avoid something? And what's it cost? Right. That avoids costing you. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yep, absolutely. So it's not it's not making major financial decisions together.

you know, or avoiding that and that's wrong. It's it's avoiding that um it's it's avoiding it when it makes sense to do so. When it would actually be the smart play, when there's like no reason not to do that. Yeah. And yet you still find yourself hesitating. It's like, well okay that might be a

What about number seven? Becoming the helper to maintain autonomy. This is an interesting one. What do we mean by what do we mean by helper? Yeah, this might be a person who's always the caregiver. Yeah, you might see this in a management fixation as well. So this has some crossover or bleedover with the management as well. But it's this idea that if you're always the person helping then um then you get to sort of call how you're doing it. And if you never are on the receiving end

then you're not it it's almost like you're not binding yourself to some sort of social contract. Right? Like if I never receive help then I never feel like I have to give back. So if I'm always in the helping position, if I'm always like doing, then I get to call the shots on when, how and nobody can tell me that I'm not helping them right because that would be You know, well what kind of person does that?

Definitely this is one that I counterintuitively use all the time. And leadership would come in here too, like taking the lead or helping in order to cover the fact that I don't want to actually commit. So it looks like I'm really jumping in and I'm really right there. Actually it's a very it's an avoidance strategy for me. Mm-hmm. Like I I know that's what's going on.

Yeah,'cause I think what's really being avoided is a reciprocal relationship. Reciprocity. Yeah. Yeah. Like if I receive then I give. And then if I give and then I receive. And uh it can really i it if you feel like you're on the hook. Right? Like, oh, I received, so now I have to give. It's thinking about things in a very transactional way, number one. But also number two, it's like, well

You know, it's like uh y you have to receive sometimes. That's part of the arrangement. That allows the other person to also feel good about having given. And uh and so to not allow that to be in a relationship is it it's also corrosive. Yeah. Um, but it also feels like then you maintain maintain that sense of of the power to be able to leave at any time. Yeah.

All right, number eight is responsibility as a performance. not a true relational investment. Mhm. So acting like you're responsible, performing responsibility, maybe even short runs, like seasonally or for small, you know I can definitely personally, I can Joel can show up really responsible around the holidays and really jump in there and help with dishes and cleaning up stuff and maybe things or or jump in and offer support around certain holidays or seasons but

Often that's a cover, so I don't have to do it the rest of the year. Right. I'm trying to like get away. I'm trying to create I know that about myself. I'm trying to like create freedom by taking on that responsibility. Yeah, it's a very letter of the law way of going about it. It's like it's minimum viable product.

It's uh I've shown up just enough so nobody can call me on it. Yeah. But I'm not necessarily particularly in terms of a relationship, I'm not necessarily showing up for like the messy incidental Yep. Emotional responsibility of a relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Like the thing that would actually be the big burden or the thing that would really make me feel like I'm super committed to this. I'm I'm doing just just the bare minimum.

to say, No, I I I go to work every day, you know, like I'm I'm helping out or I do the dishes or I uh I I I I I I run the kids around. But are you showing up when it's not a, you know, a letter of the law moment? Are you showing up when the relationship or the entity of the relationship really needs something more from you? Really needs you to kind of step up and give life force towards

Yeah. I'm really happy we went through some of these. So there's eight these eight counterintuitive ways that that fixation might show up. Because of all the four things we're gonna talk about freedom and vulnerability, rightness and management, I think this one People will mistakenly misidentify with. First of all, it's fun to think of yourself as a freedom fixation person. Like I would rather feel that way about myself than the other four, even though that's is my wiring.

Even if I wasn't, I s it's sexy, it's fun. It seems like that's a I don't know, it seems like, well, I can't be pinned down, I'm just too free and creative. It's like that's a really Seems better. Yeah. I I think also like I was talking to a friend of mine recently. He has I P preferences and I was talking about making plans. He's like, I can't make plans more than like twenty four to forty eight hours. I don't know how I'm gonna feel. I don't know how

how like he's IS INTP preferences. I don't know what I'll feel like. I don't know what I'll want to do by the time I get to that place. He's like, you guys talk about these fixations. I think I have a freedom fixation, not a rightness fixation. Mine's freedom fixation. He's younger, a lot younger than me. And I th and I think that this is also a little bit of a generational cultural thing.

So let's just briefly talk about how do I know if I'm truly somebody that struggles with this as a fixation or this is a cultural youthful moment of maybe I just you know, young peop I wouldn't commit as a young person. I d a lot of people, it doesn't matter what your fixation might be later in life, you're not you're not very committal. You're trying to figure everything out. You're very emergent already. You're

in school or your first job, you're trying to figure things out and let them emerge in front of you. You're not planning for the next twenty years. So a lot of people might might misidentify with that. Or they're like, well I hate making plans. I like to just wait to the last minute and then text my friends or do something.

What could we offer somebody maybe that's on the fence? Like is this truly how I'm wired? Is this something I should be concerned about? Is this just a cultural thing I'll get over? Yeah. Do you have any thou thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I think the you make a good point that the younger we are, the more likely we are to be freedom oriented. Yeah. Because it is a time period of exploration and a time period of getting to know ourselves.

you don't wanna necessarily settle down too soon if it's you know, it's like sometimes the star is just a line and you meet the person you were supposed to you're supposed to be with for the rest of your life as toddlers, you know, like that happens. So I'm not saying that getting married young or partnering up young is necessarily a bad But most people need a little bit of life under their belt before they partner, before they really get into relationships.

Uh if we're I mean,'cause we're talking about it in terms of a romantic relationship, but I think all of these could weirdly enough also apply to relationship with family members or relationship with friends, right? Like career. Uh maybe career, yeah. Relationship to the the maybe the career you have or job you have. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Uh but if we're gonna take it the romantic

Yeah. I don't think we're talking about somebody who knows they're in a time in a in a time period of their life that they're figuring out who they are. When you have a freedom fixation as an EP type, it kind of never goes away. Yeah. Just n like you're you could be ninety years old and you still kind of have a bit of a freedom fixation.

Because what it what the fixations are pointing to is your dominant or driver function and just how much time and effort we put into making sure that that part of ourselves gets its needs met, right? Like it can express or it can pursue or it can show up. It can be validated. Like like there's a lot that we pour into making sure that that part of ourselves

is not just operational, but like doesn't doesn't have anything encroaching on it. Now uh that's a that's a form of what Carl Jung would call one sidedness when we craft our life to make sure that this part of ourselves And that's why developing the inferior function is so important, that or integrating it specifically is so important, is so that we're not really imbalanced.

And we're not seeking this thing all the time. So over time, an EP type will have less and less of a freedom fixation. And that's why we're talking about. the ways that it can manifest in a counterintuitive way is because these are the smuggles. These are the ways that it still is gonna pop up despite all of the work and the time and effort you've poured into maybe mitigating some of the the worst aspects or qualities.

Yeah. So we're not just talking about youth. We're talking about something that's gonna follow an EP type throughout their entire life. Yeah. And uh and for most people who aren't e don't have EP preferences. This is a season of their life. This is just a time period. For EPs, it's their whole life, and it's the work of their life is to overcome this drive and this need.

So I mean it's kind of like all personality type material. You're not looking for what you can relate to. You're not looking for what you know, you've seen in yourself at times, you're looking for compulsions. You're looking for what you can't shut off. You're you're looking for things that are, you know, that that are way, way, way bigger parts of your identity.

I if you read through all eight cognitive functions, you're gonna go, Oh yeah, I identify with all those. What's my type? And it's like, well, it's not what you identify with. It's not what you've seen yourself do. It's not what you can do. It's not it's not your capacity. It's what what can you stop doing? It's what you uh can't stop identifying with in a way. You're a compul you have a compulsion to it. When all your resources low, you still find yourself doing

That's right. Yeah. Right. And so the freedom fixation is something you just can't shut off. Yeah. And you just can't shut it off, despite all your best efforts. So Well, I I would say it's not always a fixation. Uh when you say uh you can't shut the fixation off, I think you can

heal and grow in it, you just what you're saying is it's always going to be something that's pervasive. Like the the opportunity for that fixation to develop. There's people that have, I think, overcome these fix they're not fixated on this now. Yeah. They're more balanced, they're more mature. Like we we coach with Dr. John B. He's in his eighties. He's he's an ENTP, his ENTP preferences. I would say he's a very seasoned

Who has integrated his, you know, other parts of himself? He's more stable. He's committed. He's been in academia his whole life and you know, Jungian analyst. So I think these are it's just you're gonna always have the proclivity tour. Yeah. Well and I think uh I mean fixation you could almost call it like an addiction of some sorts. And an a person can be sober even if they're an addict. They can have like taught themselves sobriety. I guess that's what I'm I'm saying. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's always gonna be something that they have to like pay attention to and make sure that they don't fall into. Yeah. And uh and so it's kind of a similar thing. Freed a freedom fixation is different than a time period of freedom. Yeah. Or an experience of liking freedom or seeing freedom inside of yourself. It's like th this is something where you have to be vigilant around it. Otherwise it will it will take you down. Just like one sidedness.

And and that's really what it is. It's one sidedness. It's overvaluing your driver cognitive function, your personality. So remember the car model I referenced at the beginning of this episode. If you go under just the four letter code, you know, E X X P, and you go into what are your cognitive functions, how you learn information, make decisions.

If you're an EP type, you're going to either use the cognitive function of sensation, extroverted sensing, or uh intuition, exploration, extroverted intuition. Those are gonna either either one of those are gonna be your driver. And the protection of that, the amplification of that, the fixation on that creates this one sidedness. What do we do about this? Well, that's where personality type comes in. It's the

The cause of end solution to the problem. Or it's the the reason why the the issue exists, but it's also the way out. You have more of yourself than that driver function. You also have a copilot cognitive function that balances you out. It acts as an interpreter.

you have some less certain parts, your back seat, your 10-year-old and your three-year-old in that car model that can also help and round you out and and give you some support and some balance in your life. You're never going to be expert at those things or super certain about them, but they can certainly balance out this fixation. Well and in this case specifically for people who are EP type

the general advice is to slow everything down. Yeah. That's just sort of the general uh piece of i uh wisdom. You talked about the copilot or what's technically called the auxiliary cognitive function for an EP type that's gonna be intro. You talked about the less certain parts or we discussed the uh not being so one sided or integrating that three year old or th inferior function. That's gonna be interesting.

And so both of the leverage points to help balance out the first function or our desire for that first function to show up, both of them are going to be introverted functions. And uh that means processing. It means slowing everything down and trying to figure out what's important to you. That's what your auxiliary co pilot will tell you, what's actually important, worth committing. And then the three year old or inferior function will help you understand a longer time.

It will help you understand like how to how how how to not feel like you have to be bouncing all over the place, but to put yourself in a steadier situation where you can, you know, you can find yourself a little bit more narrow in your focus. a little bit more heading towards something or laying the track of something and not feel so

I actually recommend if you if you go over to our website, personality hacker dot com, we have a an owner's manual for all of the sixteen types where we go into how to do that type development specifically. We talk about the firm model. We talk about what it would be for your specific type out of the sixteen and then we show you the pathway out of having those fixations.

There's all sorts of ways we can be fixated. There's actually some like short-term, mid-term, and long-term ways that we can be fixated on things. There's some other um, there's other aspects of it that we go deeper into. And I think that's just something that you can understand about yourself in those owners. And while you're over there getting an owner's manual for your personality type.

Uh make a comment. Leave a comment underneath this episode. We'd love to hear what you're thinking for your personality type, or maybe you have an EP in your life. What's the A comment, a question, or maybe a story from your life, from your relationship. How has this shown up for you? Is there something you've overcome? Is this a challenge? Is it still a sticking point?

Have you found some success here? Or are you still struggling? We'd love to hear from you. Come over to personalityhacker.com and make your voice heard. Yeah, and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe to us on uh Apple Podcasts or various Android platforms like Spotify.

And if you leave us a rating and review specifically on Apple Podcasts, well that just makes me super happy. And so I I request that you do so because it lets us know that, yeah, there are people who are listening and they're enjoying it. So Uh the review is the important thing though. Ratings are great but the review is extra super crunchy. Awesome helpful.

On uh next week's episode we're gonna be talking on the next part of the firm model, invulnerability, the IJs in the Myers Briggs system. This is we're coming for you, IJs. Next week we'll talk about some counterintuitive ways that maybe the firm model My name is Joel Mark Witt. And I'm Antonia Dodge. talk with you on the next personality hacker.