What is the worst thing you can do to someone with greatly creative and quick information processing? Lock them in a rigid, highly controlled environment and give them little to no information on anything. Many ENFPs and ENTPs suffer from information underwhelm and information rigidity.
It can be a great pain for an ENFP or ENTP to be kept out of the loop on something important, to not be caught up with everything, and to feel left out. It is also equally painful to feel like you’re not allowed to investigate or test or explore what drives your curiosity.
The worst thing for an ENXP detective appears to be when there is no interesting information at hand. When there are lots of small, repetitive subtle noises everywhere but when there’s nothing interesting happening. Many ENXPs admit to struggling with having anxious evening thoughts, suddenly remembering millions of mistakes they’ve made throughout the day or their entire life. But what is the trigger?
Often, the biggest issue is when an ENXP feels kept out of the loop on something. There might be something going on that the ENXP is noticing, but doesn’t understand. When there is no information to touch on in the present, the only thing the ENXP can do is look to the past for answers. And those answers are usually not of a positive nature. Unfinished threads and things that you haven’t been able to get updates on, regrets from threads you didn’t investigate during the day.
Dealing with underwhelm
ENFPs find peace in action, in words, in speaking, in testing, and in finding things to touch and hold, threads to follow, patterns to investigate. Intuition is a steady practice in centreing and “meditation” for them. But overthinking can puncture the ENTP from following their intuition. They may think of a million options not to push a button or to follow a new thread. But the fact that you keep thinking about pushing it is a sign that you probably should.
They often recall past negative experiences, the thoughts discouraging them from action. You need new information to process, your mind isn’t meant to grow spider webs. Even when sick, ENXPs tend to be quick to jump to action to keep themselves busy. They need it to process and centre.
Rigid information is equally problematic for an ENFP. When you have an idea or a theory about something but everyone is telling you no. You need to be allowed to explore.
ENTPs and ENFPs that are shut down from exploring an idea can find the idea keep popping back into their head over and over. They keep coming back to the same solution, but the group or the people around them are closed off to it. It’s torture for an ENTP to have an idea they can’t investigate. To bring something up to the group, but to be told “no, you’re crazy”.
The ENFP has a little negative and critical ISTJ inside themselves telling them they won’t get anywhere and that they are stuck in a bad loop. Ideally this little voice is a voice of silent worry, a friend that is just concerned about you (and themselves). But since they aren’t you, they can never be something to make decisions on. All you can do is acknowledge your worry but trust your intuitive compass. Find an intuitive way of being a good friend to your inner ISXX.
How to combat underwhelm & rigidity
The way to centre during information underwhelm is to find information that you can hold onto. Do something small or symbolical, find something to settle your mixed up threads. Try not to go to bed until you’ve found some form of closure on unfinished threads. Make sure you have time during the day to be creative and to explore new thoughts.
Write down what you’re thinking or wondering about so it’s there for the next day. Stand up for your theories and ask for space to investigate something new. It’s always worth trying it out if you think there’s a chance you might be right. Combat rigidity by making sure you have creative space and breaks at your work.
Get rid of sensory distractions, sounds, noises, and things around you that can “kickstart” your sensory process. A sound of something falling can trigger an association to a time five years ago when you fell on the ice. That can in turn kickstart a whole sludge of negative associations.
