Breaking Loops (INTP)

Summary

In this video, Skimmerlit delves into the concept of breaking the dominant-tertiary loop, particularly focusing on INTPs and INFPs. The video explores why individuals enter these loops, often due to comfort and avoidance of confronting inferior functions. Skimmerlit explains that looping isn't necessarily irrational, but a strategy to minimize discomfort in the face of helplessness. Breaking the loop involves engaging the auxiliary function despite discomfort, which brings the inferior function to the table to work in harmony with other cognitive functions. The process involves acknowledging pain and confusion, and maintaining vigilance against falling back into loops. Ultimately, Skimmerlit conveys that although breaking a loop introduces discomfort, it enhances personal growth and capability.

Highlights

• Loopholes offer comfort, avoiding pain from confronting weaknesses. 🤔
• Breaking a loop involves discomfort but leads to personal growth. 🌟
• Engaging the auxiliary function, although uncomfortable, is crucial for progress. 🚀
• Recognizing loops and making conscious efforts can break their hold. 🌈
• Living with discomfort is an inevitable part of breaking and reforming loops. ⚡

Key Takeaways

• Breaking loops isn't about defeating a problem but embracing discomfort to spark growth. 🌱
• It's not about feeling good but becoming more capable by confronting pain and confusion. 🧠
• Your auxiliary function plays a crucial role in breaking loops by helping to engage with discomfort. 🚀
• Even after breaking the loop, vigilance is key to prevent slipping back. 🔍
• Growth from breaking loops enhances, but doesn't eliminate, life's inherent discomfort. 💪

Overview

When it comes to personal development, breaking out of cognitive loops is not just about overcoming challenges—it's about embracing the discomfort these challenges bring to become stronger. Skimmerlit guides us through understanding these loops, particularly focusing on the INTP and INFP types, explaining the comfort and relief these loops provide despite limiting personal growth.

Loops often provide a false sense of comfort by avoiding the tougher job of confronting one's inferior functions. However, staying in these loops feels easy but stagnant. Breaking free involves leaning into discomfort, using the auxiliary function to open up new avenues for growth, and fostering cooperation among all cognitive functions. It's a process that demands continuous effort and self-awareness.

The journey isn't straightforward or painless. Even after breaking a loop, a person must remain vigilant to avoid slipping back. The goal isn't to eradicate discomfort but to harness it for growth. Skimmerlit's insights remind us that embracing the struggle makes us more capable, even if it doesn't make the journey easier.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter introduces the topic of breaking the 'dominant tertiary loop,' focusing specifically on INTPs and INFPs. It mentions the cognitive functions Tii (Introverted Thinking) and Fisi (Introverted Feeling and Introverted Sensing) as key elements. While the chapter will primarily explore this concept using the INTPS and INFPS as examples, it also aims to discuss the loop in a broader, more general context.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Nature of Loops The chapter explores the concept of 'looping' in terms of personal behavior, emphasizing that it's not always a negative or irrational action. Looping can align a person's primary strength with their preferred method of coping or finding comfort. It serves a dual purpose: enhancing natural abilities while also potentially suppressing other aspects.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Understanding Loops as a Strategy The chapter titled 'Understanding Loops as a Strategy' delves into the challenges posed by the 'inferior function,' a metaphor for strategies or mechanisms that seem to underperform and appear to exist only to hinder or constrain progress. It suggests a dichotomy in functioning, where one might bypass the 'auxiliary,' or supportive elements, akin to ignoring strategic advice or insights. This concept may not resonate naturally with everyone, as illustrated by the reference to the 'Sammy rally car' meme, symbolizing haphazard or impulsive actions in the absence of clear strategy or guidance.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Helplessness and Avoidance The chapter "Helplessness and Avoidance" discusses the concept of the 'auxiliary', an internal guide or voice that offers advice and influences actions. However, it is described as lacking direct control or the ability to provide tangible relief, which can sometimes make its guidance seem like mere background noise. This reflects on how people might struggle with feelings of helplessness and the tendency to avoid active engagement when relying solely on internal guidance that does not take action.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Recognizing and Breaking Loops "Recognizing and Breaking Loops" discusses the natural inclination toward looping behavior, which might seem irrational unless comfort is the desired outcome. It suggests that people loop because the alternative, not looping, feels even worse. Thus, looping is presented as a natural, almost unconscious action.
• 02:30 - 03:00: The Role of Inferior and Nemesis Functions The chapter discusses the concept of psychological 'looping', particularly focusing on inferior and nemesis functions. It questions why individuals might want to stop looping if it's a strategy to minimize discomfort, suggesting that breaking out of loops isn't about immediate relief but about long-term personal growth. The text distinguishes looping from preferring a tertiary function, emphasizing that one can have a preference for their tertiary function while still engaging with their auxiliary and inferior functions.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Embracing Pain and Discomfort This chapter explores the concept of embracing pain and discomfort as opposed to a life driven by constant pursuit of pleasure and dopamine. It draws a metaphor comparing such a life to that of a chimpanzee with electrodes stimulating its pleasure centers, implying a mindless existence. The narrative challenges the commonplace assumption that one must strive for higher goals, suggesting instead that it is entirely possible to choose a life that focuses solely on immediate gratification, albeit most people do encourage striving beyond such a simplistic existence.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Engaging the Auxiliary Function The chapter discusses the concept of utilizing a secondary or auxiliary function to its fullest potential. It addresses the audience directly, suggesting that often people may advise against certain actions while not acting themselves, likened to 'gooning,' or idling. It challenges the reader to recognize their own potential, symbolized by a metaphorical ledge – an achievable goal or height that one knows they can reach if they choose to engage and climb.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Learning to Work with the Inferior Function In this chapter, the focus is on recognizing and breaking cycles or 'loops' that one might find themselves stuck in. These loops pertain to patterns or behaviors that persist in one's life, particularly those that might be detrimental or bothersome. The crucial first step is identifying the existence of such a loop, which can be challenging. Once identified, one must consciously decide to take action to disrupt or break the cycle.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Realizing Growth Through Discomfort This chapter explores the concept of growth through discomfort, particularly focusing on personality types such as INTPs and INFPs. These individuals often find themselves in repetitive thought patterns, thinking about the same issues repeatedly without taking actionable steps to resolve them. The chapter delves into how these personality types habitually fall into these patterns and how it stymies their personal growth. It posits the idea that true growth requires moving beyond these comfortable yet unproductive thinking loops.
• 05:00 - 05:30: The Pain as an Avenue for Response This chapter explores the concept of individuals repetitively engaging in self-critical thoughts and behaviors. It questions why people persist in such patterns despite recognizing the self-torture. The chapter suggests a clash with reality and a perceived lack of effective interpersonal solutions as factors contributing to this cycle, particularly from the perspective of an INTP personality type.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Maintenance and Vigilance The chapter titled 'Maintenance and Vigilance' explores the concept of making the world better through the lens of personality types. It highlights the struggle faced by INTPS, who often feel there is no effective way to create change due to their 'Nemesis Te,' leading to a realization of limitations in influencing positive change. Similarly, INFPs confront their own 'Nemesis Fe,' causing them to experience frustration about their impact on the world. The chapter emphasizes similarities between INTPs and INFPs, suggesting these personality types can be compared and contrasted meaningfully despite their perceivable differences.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Conclusion In the Conclusion chapter, the focus is on individuals realizing the limitations of their inferior functions, whether emotionally or functionally. They come to understand that these functions aren't sufficient in handling situations, especially in the manner they believe is necessary. The chapter highlights the narrowness of dominant Thinking (TI) and dominant Feeling (FI) in this context.

Breaking Loops (INTP) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 what's going on boys arm yourselves mbti stuff today we are talking a bit about breaking the dreaded dominant tertiary Loop and we're going to explain it specifically using intps and infps tii and fisi but we're going to talk about this Loop in general quite a bit
• 00:30 - 01:00 people act like looping your tertiary is always this miserable irrational thing but it isn't and you Loop in the first place because for you it makes a lot of sense on one level you are hooking up your most natural most effective strength with your natural relief whatever makes you feel most comfortable on another level you are repressing your
• 01:00 - 01:30 inferior function the thing that doesn't work very well and feels like it exists solely to hurt you or to limit you and on another level you are bypassing your auxiliary who is or what is an advisor I'm realizing doesn't naturally make a lot of sense for people like that Sammy rally car you're going to break the car Sammy meme
• 01:30 - 02:00 your auxiliary does give you good advice it informs most of your actions but it's hands are not on the wheel and if you try to listen to it it can come across as yappy and nonsensical and another thing I'm realizing is your auxiliary doesn't itself provide you any relief that's why it's so easy to or so
• 02:00 - 02:30 natural even to bypass it see looping tertiary looping is not in any way irrational if Comfort is your end goal and you might say well looping makes me miserable well why don't you stop because not looping feels even worse looping is a natural almost unconscious
• 02:30 - 03:00 strategy to minimize discomfort so why would you want to stop looping if you know you are not going to feel better it's so you can be better if you spend your entire life looping which is distinct from preferring your tertiary because you can prefer your tertiary and still access listen to your auxiliary and work with or on your inferior you're
• 03:00 - 03:30 going to spend your entire life like a chimpanzee with electrodes stuck in the Goon center of his brain you're going to spend your entire life spinning in circles and hitting the dopamine levers and if that's all you want to do with your life contrary to popular belief you can nobody says you well people some people say you need to reach higher but you actually don't and the
• 03:30 - 04:00 people telling you you should probably won't that's why they are spending time telling you what you shouldn't shouldn't be doing while sitting on their asses and gooning Electrode gooning themselves but if you have this something in you you might recognize there is a potential you aren't reaching there is a ledge you can see and know you could climb but
• 04:00 - 04:30 aren't climbing it and maybe that bothers you and if it does then breaking the loop and keeping the loop off is something you're going to need to learn to do and keep at because Loops are devs so how do you break a loop first step is recognizing you're in one which is difficult and then deciding you want to do something about about it Loops are
• 04:30 - 05:00 tricky because they feel like the most effective option they creep in you don't choose to do these things these are the things you find yourself doing so for intps and infps both sharing tertiary SI they're going to find themselves thinking about the same [ __ ] over and over and over again never iterating on it never doing anything about it just
• 05:00 - 05:30 thinking the same exact things every day and from an outsider's point of view you could say they are torturing themselves with this idea and they might say the same thing but why do they keep on doing it well reality has hit them with a brick wall the INTP thinks there is no good way to deal with people
• 05:30 - 06:00 airgo there is no good way to change things and make the world better remember intps have Nemesis te infp realizes I can't do [ __ ] I can't change anything Argo I can't make the world better for people infps have Nemesis Fe infp's 9ps are very good to compare each other against because they're very similar when you get down into the [ __ ]
• 06:00 - 06:30 they care about anyway not necessarily in the ways they deal with things they're realizing their inferior functions are not up to Snuff emotionally or functionally to deal with things at least in the way they think they need to deal with things dominant TI and dominant fi are very narrow
• 06:30 - 07:00 especially when young the world needs to be 115% great yesterday and I can't get 0% and that is where the loop starts the inferior function which is typically repressed typically weak it's also a bit of an aspiration tied up with the Nemesis function encounters the reality that it stinks and can't do [ __ ] and that level
• 07:00 - 07:30 of helplessness is deeply distressing so distressing in fact they'd rather not even deal with that they'd rather not it's not just it's not it's not just laziness or cowardice I think most types most people most of the time don't realize these things can be
• 07:30 - 08:00 overcome at all so it's like sticking your hand against a hot oven and then pulling it away not realizing you can turn the oven off I don't think people realize that's an option that's part of the reason looping starts you get confronted with something super painful perhaps or maybe one of the most painful things
• 08:00 - 08:30 and you don't realize there's anything you can do about it so you Retreat back into what naturally is most comfortable to you and now this is a weird contradiction Loops are both schizophrenic and insane but I think also they exist to keep you from losing your mind IPS will torture themselves every day literally repeating it to themselves
• 08:30 - 09:00 helplessness the image of helplessness the memory of helplessness the feeling of helplessness every day it looks like torture it probably feels like torture but it isn't it is the image of what they felt conceptualized into Oblivion repeated into Oblivion but it isn't exactly what they felt and it keeps them from going back and standing before the horror of their
• 09:00 - 09:30 helplessness like a cosmic Beast you can't wrap your mind around that level of felt helplessness can break people so by I think anyway by looping by telling themselves about it repeatedly it keeps them from actually confronting it esps for instance which is hilarious inferior ni there's more to this world you know
• 09:30 - 10:00 and you are probably more keenly aware of that than most people are specifically because you're aware of it yet also feel separated from it how do you deal with this mind breaking fact you are aware of live laugh love my dude do anything except think about it so your first step in breaking your Loop is to recognize that you are looping at all
• 10:00 - 10:30 and to accept that your looping is probably coming from a place of pain and confusion almost certainly helplessness we didn't even get into entjs you want to see devastating Loops inferior fi and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race and then you need to decide you want to do something about your
• 10:30 - 11:00 Loop knowing that breaking the loop is confronting this pain your confusion your helplessness and then at some point however many times you try to break the loop accepting this mind-breaking pain is not going away it won't go away you your inferior and Nemesis functions are many
• 11:00 - 11:30 things and they are all contradictions and the longer you live and the longer you study practical typology the more beautiful it becomes not to get artsy fartsy your inferior and Nemesis functions are that pain it's not the the pain is not a consequence of them it is them because
• 11:30 - 12:00 it's knowledge they are knowledge together what it means to be that one in a hundred people Afflicted with this bad thing what it means to live as someone who is helpless in this particular field your inbuilt weakness is a constant reminder whenever Joyce's Deus would get a little too high on on his horse or his life would be
• 12:00 - 12:30 going a little too well something stinky would come around and ground him that's what your inferior function is and once again part of breaking out of your Loop is accepting the discomfort the confusion the pain the helplessness of accepting that part of life you aren't slaying the dragon you are accepting the fact you have a monkey
• 12:30 - 13:00 on your back and it's heavy and it's biting your ears and it's stinks and it isn't going anywhere that hurts so much worse and so much more constantly than looping does but once you've accepted what it really means to break a loop then you can start breaking it and one of the one of the very great benefits of
• 13:00 - 13:30 breaking a loop is realizing after a certain point the pain hasn't gone away but you're a lot more capable now that you have stopped repressing the truth that you have a monkey on your back or complaining about it constantly you can dedicate your time to practicing with it not against it not in spite of it not to combat it but with it it and then you're somebody who can
• 13:30 - 14:00 run a 5k with a monkey on their back you're carrying around a [ __ ] catapult the contradiction one of the many contradictions in your inferior function and your Nemesis function is how they tie you together perfectly in a way you wouldn't expect right the T inferior INTP thing used to be a meme however many years ago
• 14:00 - 14:30 how dangerous would an INTP be if you replaced just swap them two functions around right next to each other in the the grand chain Fe for Te how dangerous would that INTP be how manipulative controlling masterfully controlling would an infp B if you swap those two functions te for Fe ENT days get rid of that sobbing on
• 14:30 - 15:00 the floor crying fi and swap it out with ti how dangerous and I think that's one of the reasons so many people talk about doing Shadow work when they aren't even doing conscious normal cognitive function Stacks work if you felt you needed if you were trying to recreate this te inferior INTP
• 15:00 - 15:30 meme in real life by doing Shadow work you're missing the picture your inferior function doesn't hold you back and make you weak it feels that way your inferior function instead ties all of your conscious functions together better because of that weakness not in spite of it your inferior and Nemesis functions are your Forever pain functions forever weakness
• 15:30 - 16:00 functions forever helplessness functions they are also your Masterpiece functions I'm having a hard time describing it but they make you they make everything work together exactly the way they're supposed to work together once you accept that pain for what it is and once again I reiterate I stress that does not feel good it is
• 16:00 - 16:30 never going to feel good but it turns you into such a Supple machine opposed to the rigidness the rigid thing vulnerable thing because of its rigidness you would be if you swapped your inferior Nemesis functions you wouldn't be strong nothing would work in concert for one month you would feel invulnerable
• 16:30 - 17:00 and probably not human and then fall apart your weakness is your soul and that hurts well it it just hurts but it also makes you so much more capable once you embrace it stop hiding from the discomfort of your existence so step two breaking the loop you engage your auxiliary you do not just let it advise
• 17:00 - 17:30 because even while you were looping it was advising you were just choosing not to listen to it now you are doing more than listening to it now as much as you can as bad as it feels as stupid as it feels and it will feel awful and stupid let your auxiliary make decisions the way your dominant function would make decisions and it's going to feel stupid and uncomfortable because
• 17:30 - 18:00 specifically stupid and uncomfortable those two words because your auxiliary function is going to be is going to contrast in its expression against your greatest strength and your greatest comfort so I'm an INTP my auxiliary function is NE that's an extroverted function my greatest strength and my greatest Comfort are both introverted functions had to think about that one for a second
• 18:00 - 18:30 this is not the field you are good at or comfortable with and by going into this field you are going to be for now lightly brushing the balls of your inferior function not hitting it straight yet but getting a little close for comfort and you do this as much or as long as you can bear it you build up a tolerance for it and the reason you're doing this I think is you're building up
• 18:30 - 19:00 faith in your auxiliary function and not just faith in that it can do things but faith in that it does accomplish things you need to do it for a while because I think people don't have the confidence their auxiliary function can do anything anything independently how do you trust
• 19:00 - 19:30 something's advice if you've never seen it really work I think most people's auxiliary function is to them a curiosity something that spices up their personality but does nothing substantial because you don't know it can do something substantial because you haven't figured out what your inferior ior function means how it works yet and
• 19:30 - 20:00 you've been looping for however long however many months however many years on the grand life scale you haven't given your auxiliary enough time to work enough to prove itself to you so it's going to feel stupid it's going to feel uncomfortable listen to your auxiliary for a while as much as you can do what it says be safe but embrace the
• 20:00 - 20:30 discomfort embrace the fact you are in a situation operating in a realm or with tools you are not comfortable with the discomfort is what you're looking for and we mentioned expression earlier introverted expression or extroverted expression the way your functions act themselves out you don't need to try to coax your inferior function out or to work on it
• 20:30 - 21:00 specifically if you engage your auxiliary enough long enough and seriously enough earnestly you're going to be in the same realm as your inferior function so if you are an in you are going to be in the extroverted realm using your auxiliary but with your inferior there same for introverted
• 21:00 - 21:30 auxiliaries you go inside with your auxiliary you're going to encounter naturally your inferior you don't have to do anything just be uncomfortable in this space and your inferior will come out and I am not going to try to discourage you from trying to work on your inferior directly but I will say
• 21:30 - 22:00 I've never really needed to work on mine that hard or I haven't once I started engaging my auxiliary putting myself in that extroverted sphere more often another thing that's difficult to describe but it's like your functions start working together instead of your three first functions all ganging up on your inferior your inferior recognizes its
• 22:00 - 22:30 skills however minimal are needed so it shows up in helps and then in kind your other functions start helping your inferior function and that's when you really start cooking because at this point once your inferior function is at the table and all your functions are at least trying to work in concert the loop is broken and you would you probably would need someone to tell you that the
• 22:30 - 23:00 loop is broken because it doesn't feel like it's broken all you're feeling is stress and pain considering those feelings you might not have the time or attention to recognize that you are no longer stagnating you're becoming someone different you're becoming someone more effective and this thing that bothered you so much and with will continue to bother you the
• 23:00 - 23:30 rest of your life you are at least engaging with it's not going to be happy it is not designed to be happy this isn't a there isn't a happy ending here but you are at the table and the thing you thought was hurting you you have realized is on your side it just hurts feels like it hurts and does hurt because that is the Avenue you are you feel the evil of the
• 23:30 - 24:00 world the most right so if you're an INTP difficulties with people are going to hurt you badly and I don't think that's ever going to go away but that's not fe's fault you're an infp you feel powerless the world is designed to make you feel powerless that's not te's fault in fact Fe and te these avenues
• 24:00 - 24:30 for hurt they're all typology is really beautiful if you can get out of the pop psychology [ __ ] and step into the coincidentally yion mystical realm these Avenues of hurt or through which hurt comes in through which you are made aware of how awful the world is is also the Avenue through which you can express
• 24:30 - 25:00 your response to whatever that worldly evil is I think I work in nonprofits who are the people I find come into my office wanting to help most elderly te Doms who now want to save the world and I say that mockingly
• 25:00 - 25:30 but well I there isn't a nice way to say that 65 perfect time to try to save the world especially when you don't really you still aren't really committed to it because that is really uncomfortable and you got to retirement age unable to deal with the most uncomfortable aspects of your life regardless the FI and inferiors after it's already way too
• 25:30 - 26:00 late and they never trained themselves to commit to things that are deeply uncomfortable that is the Avenue through which they want to effect change on the world versus infps they want to go out and make these big changes when looking at them they are the they appear to be the least changy people this all to say you have
• 26:00 - 26:30 broken the loop at this point you have never felt worse you feel like you're dying you have also never been better and then step three because breaking the loop is not the last step you thought it was just something you do once and then you're good you're going to need to break yourself out of Loops so many times in your life step three is like the maintenance stage in
• 26:30 - 27:00 therapy you stay vigilant are you falling back into a loop why are you falling back into a loop if you are do you plan on doing something about it how did this happen at all because Loops are tricky you really don't want to feel bad so between the bad or Worse option you are naturally unconsciously going to lean
• 27:00 - 27:30 into bad instead of worse that's how you end up back in loops and you are always going to do that so if Loops bother you you need always to be vigilant you can't let yourself get comfortable and if that all sounds too stressful if that's all too much nobody is saying you have to nobody's saying you have to do all this and I mean that anyone who says You must
• 27:30 - 28:00 do this or that just to be more effective because you aren't really going to change anything that's the pain of it that's one of the great Pains of life I think is recognizing that you really aren't going to change anything at least not in any way you are going to see or be rewarded for never going to feel comfortable for you don't have to do anything I completely
• 28:00 - 28:30 understand choosing bad instead of worse you have one life why would you want to hurt more knowing it isn't going to amount anything so [ __ ] them you do what you need to do but that is Loops some thoughts on them how they tie into life at large and how to break out of them if you are stupid enough to
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