What Lies Ahead

The Myers Briggs Personality test changed my life in 2015. I found out I have the rarest type, INFJ. Only 1% of the world's population has it, but more than that, it helped me understand myself and understand my tortuous mind and feelings and the explanations behind a whole lot of how and why I function the way I do, both in the real world and in my own mind (a world in itself). Oh to have known this at 13 years old!

And I went to see Oprah Winfrey this year - and she has the same personality type and she explained how to use your in-built intuition and drive to accomplish what you want out of life. And before you start thinking that it all sounds a bit like I've got my head in the clouds, believe me, I do! But I also have two good feet firmly on the ground, and that is partly the struggle that all INFJ's wrestle with through life.

So, in my annual New Year post where I collect favourite quotes from the past year and put them over some of my best photographs, this year I've chosen to do it a slightly different way, and I'm only using quotes from other INFJ personalities - those who are well-known in the world and have made a difference.

Oprah Winfrey
Eleanor Roosevelt
JK Rowling
Leonard Cohen
Agatha Christie
Noam Chomsky
Martin Luther King, Jr
Emily Bronte

These quotes are important to me, and I plan on using them through 2016 to inspire me and to help me through the days when I need strength, and I know there are a few of those coming up this year. It will be an epic year for me - I will have to face some of my fears head on, but I know that in the end, there will be triumph.


This is the quote of the year for me. I love it. I heard Oprah say it in person and it sent chills up my spine. What tragedy and hope there is all mixed up in these few, simple words.

Kia Kaha - Be Strong. Stand Strong. This is a particularly special and beautiful saying for me for the year of 2016. It will be close to my heart for a long time.

I feel this often. It is in my nature to feel this. But I have learned a lot these past few years. I feel more confident now. My self-talk is better.

The truth has always been very important to me.

With my memory, the past is always with me. It's learning to use that to move forward. To be aware of what has gone before me. What has led me to this point in my life and how I can learn from that to build my future.

Maybe this is a maturity thing. I'm past 40 now. Everyone says that once you reach 40 the things that matter are so different to what they were when you were 20, and that is true. And I am finding the value in limiting my friendships, as hard as that has been to do, in surrounding myself with people who love me for me, not for who I once was, or for some past historic connection, but they like me and I like them, and being with them gives me energy. This has narrowed the field somewhat - but my handful of close friends are few and precious. I like having lots of friends, but in the past that has been a trap to give me self-worth and the trap was superficial and, in the end, disappointing. I like loyalty - even when I am not the best friend in the world - I am so bad at friendship, partly because my memory works in such a way that if I saw you a year ago, it feels like yesterday to me. And partly because life, in this season, is so incredibly busy for me at the moment. I don't have time to waste on superficiality, or people who don't understand me.

I love this quote from one of my favourite authors, and fellow INFJ. Every day is a gift, a treasure.

Not many people like change. We get comfortable, never realising that when the hard things hit us, they are often the catalyst to shift us from our complacency and to move forward in life. Life is never still. It is always moving, changing, bringing fresh challenges. I have had some cataclysmic changes the past few years. They have changed me. I'm not the same person I was before.
But what a gift it has been.

Don't you wish the whole world could hear this message? But hearing is one thing. Doing is another.

Sometimes I feel like life is just starting for me. With age comes awareness of who you are and what you want out of life. I still have dreams. I still have beautiful dreams.

Emily Bronte. Another favourite author. Another fellow INFJ. Maybe it is only INFJ's who will 'get' this quote. The intrinsic, fundamental knowledge that we are old souls. That we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders and all the love of the world in our hearts.

How do we use our gifts and our passions to better the world? To dream and to live it out? It is an eternal question, never answered.

This is one of my favourite quotes, and I can't even articulate why!

As we bid farewell to 2015 and turn the page of a new year, what lies ahead for you? What dreams do you have for the year ahead? Whatever they are,  I wish you well in the pursuit of them.