Mediators (INFP) and Self-Talk: Transforming Negativity into Creative Opportunities

While Mediator (INFP) personality types may appear quiet on the outside, their inner lives are anything but. In our previous article on self-talk, we explored how most people (97%) have an inner voice. For Mediators – introspective individuals who tend to reflect deeply on their thoughts and feelings – this holds even truer at 99%.

It’s possible to work with your inner voice rather than against it. We’ve written a small but powerful guide detailing how to create a collaborative partnership with your inner voice – the Mediator Guide to Inner Peace.

Mediators have a rich inner world where ideas, thoughts, and dreams flow endlessly. This mental realm allows them to reflect deeply on themselves and the world around them. Within that vivid imagination, it is easy for them to lose themselves in daydreams, inventing stories, righting wrongs, and fixing the world. Entire new conversations can unfold in their mind. Reality need not always interfere.

As with many strengths, when relied upon too heavily, this gift can turn into a burden. Mediators’ source of creativity can become a breeding ground for self-doubt when their imagination turns to the negative. In our “Thought Patterns” survey, when asked whether they often get stuck in negative thoughts, out of all the personality types, Mediators say “yes” most often.

These negative thought patterns can be crippling, leading to increased stress levels, anxiety, and emotional paralysis. This is an even more pressing challenge for Mediator personalities with a Turbulent Identity (INFP-T). The aim of this article, therefore, is to create greater awareness of Mediators’ self-talk and to help these personalities recognize when they are getting stuck in a negative spiral. Once they have established this awareness of their self-talk patterns, they can start the journey to learning about coping skills.

First things first: we will take a look at how Mediator personalities are impacted by self-talk and how different types of self-talk manifest in their lives. We’ll explore some specific patterns in negative self-talk that Mediators tend to follow and the reasons why breaking out of these patterns would greatly benefit their overall well-being.

The Impact of Self-Talk on Mediators

Mediator personality types, with their Intuitive and Feeling traits, trust their heart when making decisions. The majority of Mediators answer “Heart” when asked in our “Head vs. Heart” survey whether they mostly listen to their heart or to their mind when making important choices. Their self-talk can either positively reinforce that intuition or create doubt and indecision. Thoughts impact feelings and, ultimately, behavior. Positive, instructional, and motivational self-talk can have a positive impact on Mediators.

Self-talk and the positive and negative types of self-talk are outlined in more detail in our article “Exploring the Conversations We Have with Ourselves: How Self-Talk Impacts Us.”

A Virtuous Cycle of Positive, Instructional, and Motivational Self-Talk

When Mediators use self-talk constructively, it reinforces their intuition and helps them confidently make decisions that are aligned with their values. Luckily, most Mediators don’t shy away from a bit of self-reflection to learn how to apply this in real time. When they dive in, these personality types can really harness the power of their inner dialogue to propel themselves forward.

Positive self-talk bridges the gap between inspiration and action, leading to personal growth, meaningful accomplishments, and a fulfillment of Mediators’ purpose. It’s the holy grail of self-improvement.

Instructional self-talk can be turned into Mediators’ ally, helping them organize their thoughts, create plans, set clear objectives, and provide themselves with step-by-step instructions, ultimately priming them to take action.

This is the moment when motivational self-talk is ready to kick in, inspiring Mediators to actively pursue their passions and make a positive impact on the world. Motivational self-talk fuels their inner fire and provides the determination to overcome obstacles and push through hurdles. This is needed at times, as Mediators have a tendency to feel a burst of inspiration, only to overthink and easily talk themselves out of pursuing their goals before taking even the first step.

To close this loop and create a virtuous circle – the opposite of a negative spiral – Mediators can incorporate positive affirmations to strengthen their determination to keep going. Mediators can remind themselves of their strengths, empower themselves to approach challenges, unlock their full potential, and bring their unique gifts and perspectives to the world. One way to unlock positive self-talk is to approach inner conversations with empathy, a quality that Mediators possess in abundance. For a change, though, they’ll have to grant it to themselves.

And that’s where people with this personality type might struggle and open the door to negative self-talk. While Mediators are known to be sensitive, empathetic people, they often find it difficult to extend this grace to themselves. Of all the personality types, they are the harshest critics of themselves, as shown in our “Criticism” survey – Mediators are tremendously more critical of themselves than they are of others.

Three Negative Self-Talk Pitfalls for Mediators

Mediators can be incredibly demanding of themselves. They recognize their unique potential and the valuable perspective that they add to the world. However, having these grand visions for themselves can also carry a risk: the struggle to live up to their own expectations. When they do fail or perceive themselves as failing, Mediators are harsh self-critics. These personality types may feel useless, inadequate, or lazy, and they are likely to find reasons to blame themselves when they think they’ve made a mistake.

Feel like your inner voice is always criticizing? We created a small but mighty guide on befriending your inner critic – the Mediator Guide to Inner Peace – to help Mediator personalities experience a new level of harmony and confidence.

These negative views create a vicious circle, a downward spiral of self-criticism that further discourages Mediators, leading to more self-blame and frustration, which only deepens their discouragement, and so on and so forth. To break that cycle, Mediators should know the three most common pitfalls of negative self-talk that they are prone to experiencing. When they start to recognize the traps, there is a bigger chance that they will learn how to prevent themselves from falling into them.

1. Catastrophizing

There is a lot to be said about the imaginative mind of Mediator personalities. It’s one of their hidden strengths. However, this talent can also create some unintentional challenges for them. Their imagination is so vivid that it is easy for them to get lost in it. Mediators can create an inner maze that they cannot find their way out of. Creating worst-case scenarios is one of the blocks that populates this maze.

Mediators are fantastic at creating what-if scenarios and subsequently dreaming up the worst-case outcome – something that is also called catastrophizing. The more time that they spend thinking about such an outcome, the more real it becomes in their mind. It’s not surprising that this tendency can lead to decision paralysis as a result. After all, if you know the worst-case outcome and believe that it’s likely to happen, why would you take action and risk it becoming true?

Additionally, Mediator personalities are prone to letting a single piece of information provide the whole picture, magnifying their fear of a pending catastrophe. When one thing goes wrong, they often tend to feel like everything will go wrong. This feeling is not exclusive to Mediator personality types, based on our “Handling Stress” survey – however, that does not lessen its impact on the way that Mediators talk to themselves.

When Mediators perceive that something is going wrong – be it a failed action that they took or a criticism that they received – they too often do not look at it as valuable information that they can use to improve, seeing it instead as a confirmation that their effort was doomed from the start. This shifts their focus away from moving into action and back to overthinking – which very likely drops them into pitfall #2: rehashing.

2. Rehashing

Rehashing, defined as dwelling on the past in a negative and unproductive manner, is a mental pattern that might be all too familiar to Mediators. According to our “Thought Patterns” survey, Mediator personalities catch themselves dwelling on past mistakes on a regular basis.

If we look at this through a positive lens, Mediators can use these reflections on the past as learning opportunities. Yet ruminating on past events often involves a heavy focus on things that did not go according to plan or were dissatisfying. The creative mind of Mediator personalities becomes trapped in an endless loop of what-ifs. Mediators can have the same conversation a thousand times over in their minds with just small differences in each version to see how it could have played out.

This repetitive loop can lead to painstakingly analyzing every detail, replaying scenarios, and scrutinizing conversations for hidden meanings or flaws within themselves. This type of thinking can result in feelings of guilt, regret, and even depression. At the least, it certainly exacerbates self-doubt and negative emotions about the initial event.

3. Personalizing

The last pitfall of negative self-talk for Mediators is personalizing, which is making external events a direct reflection of you – in other words, when bad things happen, you find a way to attribute the blame to yourself. Mediators are quick to point the finger at themselves.

When things aren’t going according to plan, not only do Mediators tend to blame themselves but they also start to doubt themselves, according to their answers to our “Doubts” survey. Doubt becomes a fertile breeding ground for negative self-talk, as Mediators’ introspective nature leads them to question themselves rather than question factors such as their knowledge or skills.

Knowledge and skills are two issues that can be addressed and improved, but what do you do when you consider yourself the problem? Personalizing places the burden on Mediators’ core identity. This tendency to internalize blame leads them back to the first pitfall of catastrophizing and the second pitfall of rehashing.

As Mediators struggle to separate themselves from the problem, addressing the issue becomes challenging. Recognizing that external events or mistakes are not tied to one’s value as a person is an important hurdle to take in the path to thriving. Once again, it’s empathy that we call upon here: practicing self-compassion will foster a healthier mindset, as Mediators can acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes. Additionally, the outcome of this “mistake” gives them valuable information to take into consideration for the future.

Breaking Free

These traps of negative self-talk can place a heavy burden on Mediators. By assuming blame for external events, they feed their self-doubt, slowly and steadily chipping away at their self-esteem. That lowered self-esteem reinforces self-doubt, and this vicious cycle creates a feeling of powerlessness for Mediators. When in such a spiral, these personality types tend to turn to their comfort zone and let their imagination take over. However, due to the negative feeding ground that’s present here, worst-case scenarios might be the first things that pop up in their mind, making it hard to not catastrophize.

When in such a mindset, most Mediators are set up to fall into the pattern of rehashing, considering their “mistake” from each and every angle. While natural to them, this hinders their ability to navigate challenges. Instead of moving into action and incorporating constructive changes, they become trapped in that negative spiral, fixated on the what-if scenarios that keep them stagnant.

To thrive while staying true to themselves, Mediator personalities face the challenge of redirecting their contemplative nature and imaginative mind toward a future filled with possibilities and personal development. When they can turn their reflections into actionable learning, rather than dwelling on unchangeable past events, they can break free from the repetitive patterns that keep them stuck. By doing so, they pave the way for a more positive self-image to flourish, enabling Mediators to direct their empathetic and insightful nature into personal growth and mental well-being.

Harnessing the Power of Self-Talk

The inner worlds that Mediators love to inhabit are complex and incredibly imaginative. This gift can be used as a bottomless source of creativity, and it can be used to continuously explore new perspectives. However, it is this introspective nature that can sometimes lead Mediators down a path of self-doubt and criticism, especially when they narrow their focus on their perceived past failures and mistakes.

Using positive self-talk will reinforce Mediators’ intuitive decision-making, allow new perspectives to emerge, and help them find opportunities. Instructional and motivational self-talk can be powerful allies for people with this personality type, helping them organize their thoughts and cheering them on to act on ideas. However, when Mediators lose focus and fall into one of the negative self-talk traps, they may find themselves stuck and stop their forward push into action.

This article aims to be the first step in understanding the transformative power of self-talk. It begins with recognition. With recognition, awareness can grow. That’s when Mediator personality types can harness their motivational and instructional self-talk to explore new practices that shift their thinking toward constructive steps and reframe challenges as opportunities for solutions. By tapping into these strengths, Mediators can enjoy a fulfilling, purposeful, and emotionally balanced life.

Mediators, how do you harness the power of self-talk? Which negative self-talk traps do you encounter and occasionally fall into? How do you overcome them? Let us know in the comments.