ENFJs and stress
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Your personality type affects the way that you react to stress. There are three main stages.
When you have little or no stress, you find it easy to use the most appropriate behaviours for the situation. Very often, these are behaviours you may have learned at school, on training courses, etc.
As stress increases, 'learned behaviour' tends to give way to the natural style, so an ENFJ will typically behave more according to type when under greater stress. For example, in a crisis, the ENFJ might get everyone organised, express appreciation for their efforts, contribute creative ideas, but overlook current realities and fail to consider the cost implications.
Under extreme stress, fatigue or illness, the ENFJ's shadow may appear - a negative form of ISTP. This might include characteristics such as being very critical and finding fault with almost everything. You may also tend to do things to excess - e.g.: eating, drinking or exercising - and ask for irrelevant information whilst ignoring others' feelings. The shadow is part of the unconscious that is often visible to others, onto whom the shadow is projected. An ENFJ may therefore readily see these faults in others without recognising it in him/her self.
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