Everyone has good days and bad days; every type enjoys successes and suffers through failures. Yet we each react to those same successes and failures differently, depending on our cognition. The things we value most, and the things we focus on most, determine how we subconsciously interpret everything that happens to us. While our Type Specialization reflects what we most desire out of life, every cognitive type also has a Type Angst, a reaction to our deepest fears, worries, and insecurities.
Of course, anyone can be afraid of anything. And anyone, of any type, can suffer from any weakness. In fact, it’s much easier to gain the unique weaknesses of other types than it is to gain their unique strengths! When we attempt to adopt the strengths of another type before mastering our own, usually all we end up with is the weaknesses of both and the strengths of neither. Yet each cognitive type has one deepest, most fundamental worry, resulting from their unique order of cognition steps.
As an ESFJ Cavalry, your central fear, beneath all others, is that you have to work twice as hard as everyone else, just to keep up. That no matter how hard you try, you’re always letting someone down, falling short, or simply failing due to your lack of natural ability. Again, anyone can have this fear. But for Cavalry, this worry is at the root of them all.
With ESFJs’ weakest cognition step being Data via Thinking, Cavalry naturally fear that their understanding of details, and the conclusions they draw from situations, are especially lacking. Specifically, they worry that their conclusions lack useful correctness (T) in a conceptual way (N). You fear that you’re just not sharp enough, that your understanding of concepts is not good enough to be useful. This unconscious worry that your thoughts and insights are not NT enough results in the fear that you just aren’t naturally smart, so you can’t keep up with everyone else unless you work doubly hard.
This is almost certainly false, but that doesn’t make the fear any less persistent.
Since these worries come from our cognition, we might not even realize that not everyone has them, just as we sometimes forget that not everyone has our same Type Specialization. And since these fears come from our cognition, they’ve been with each of us for as long as we’ve been thinking. They can be overcome, entirely, but only by understanding how they work. Yet when each of us is young, we inadvertently react to every scare or disappointment through the lens of our own type’s central fear. The things that leave the deepest scars are the ones that hit us right in this most vulnerable place.
But since our minds therefore associate these fears with the earliest experiences of childhood, we ironically tend to run to these fears as if they were a place of safety. Childhood usually feels warm, safe, and right in our minds, even if in reality it was nothing of the sort. So when life gets hard, when disappointment strikes, whenever we feel insecure, overwhelmed, or uncomfortable at all, our minds naturally and inadvertently rush back to these deeply ingrained childhood fears. The coping behaviors that result are our unique Type Angsts.
As a Cavalry, whenever you feel or experience anything stressful or negative in any way, your mind tries to rush back to the supposed safety of childhood. This causes a surge of your central fear that you’re not naturally smart or skilled, and so must work extra hard just to keep up with everyone else. As a result, you then feel the tempting pull to indulge in the ESFJ Leslie Knope Marathon.
The Leslie Knope Marathon is the frantic desire to do everything, and get it done right now. You make plans, chart your course, and tell yourself that with enough sheer grit and willpower, you can discipline yourself to fulfill all your goals. It should come as no surprise that this never works out very well. You’re a person, and people need emotional sustenance in order to accomplish anything. But when the Leslie Knope Marathon strikes, you try to tell yourself that you’re doing just fine, that you’re tough and you don’t need rest or refueling.
The result is either a breakdown amid the collapse of your overscheduled goals, or a growing hardness and bitterness as you try to suppress your healthy human need for recharging. Often both. The Leslie Knope Marathon causes Cavalry to sabotage their own treasured specialization, frantically rushing everything and squeezing the joy out of everyone’s experiences.
As an attempt to cope, some ESFJs decide to give up and find solace in intentional shallowness. They may even take pride in being shallow, as if that makes them more likeable or fun. They imply that they shouldn’t have to work hard to be good at things, that it’s uncool to be smart or skilled, and that no one really likes people who stand out anyway. This is in direct opposition to the healthy Cavalry desire to stand as a shining example of how to be happy and sincere, leading their group to enjoyable, meaningful experiences.
Then on the flip side, other ESFJs try to compensate by demanding extra recognition for everything they accomplish. They make an ostentatious show of having amazing natural ability, as if talking up their own capabilities will make up for their hidden feelings of inadequacy. These ESFJs let their need to be popular corrupt their good desire to shine at the head of their group, instead becoming insufferable fakers. Because their desire to be liked and appreciated exceeds their love for their friends, they hurt the very people they want to enjoy, and end up driving them away.
Particularly unhealthy ESFJs expend tireless effort seeking out ways to prove their superiority, popularity, and exceptional accomplishments over everyone else. It never helps the ESFJ feel any better about themselves for more than a moment, and then they feel only more inadequate and unappreciated after the high of pretension passes. An unhealthy ESFJ’s entire reason for being becomes deflating others’ happiness, in direct opposition to their Type Specialization. This ultimate contradiction, desperately fighting against one’s own deepest, most treasured desire, is miserable to say the least.
Yet even healthy Cavalry tend to indulge in the Leslie Knope Marathon when things get hard or stressful. As a natural and unintentional way of guarding themselves, a Cavalry may show off or take on far too much responsibility, as if people will only ever appreciate them if they ignore their own limits. These unintentional slips into ESFJ’s Type Angst are nothing to beat yourself up about; after all, they’re unintentional. Give yourself time to make mistakes, give yourself time to recharge, and remember that you can’t shine for anyone if you’re racing too fast to spend time with them.
Since a Cavalry’s relationship to their group of friends and loved ones is so important to them, they must always make it a priority to stay sincere, to avoid the temptation of shallow fakeness, and so to steer social expectations in a meaningful, happy direction. When you find yourself chasing the crowd in a desire to be liked, you’re no longer shining as a helpful example to anybody. Stop running, take a breath, plant your feet and say, “Look, everybody! Let’s go do this, this will make us all happy! Follow me!” Even if nobody follows you at first, most will quickly hurry to be around you as someone who sincerely cares about them, rather than chasing self-aggrandizing divas.
All types can be tempted to declare that they or their loved ones are already everything they’d like to be, even if it means ignoring glaring truths or putting others down. Our Type Angsts tempt us to feel entitled, like we deserve to already be at our goal, rather than being willing to learn and grow patiently, gaining successes for real. This sense of entitlement is a harmful twisting of the good desire to be special. In reality, everyone can be equally special in ways that are different from one another, allowing all to be unique in unique, diverse ways.
As you surround yourself with the loving support of people who care, as you seek out others who try to understand you and accept you, you can grow less and less vulnerable to the self-sabotage of the Leslie Knope Marathon. Look to your Type Specialization, be a Cavalry with a vengeance, and your mind will retreat less and less into the fears and scars that result in your Type Angst. And even when no one else is around, perhaps the best, most effective, and most fulfilling way to gradually eliminate your Type Angst for good, is to get in touch with your Paradoxitype.
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