When a highly sensitive man loses himself... (INFJ / INFP)

There can be a strange moment in life when the things we built our identity around begin to fall away. The work. The responsibilities. The roles we learned to play. And in the quiet that follows, a question begins to surface:

Who was I before I became who I needed to be?

For many highly sensitive men, especially those who identify as INFJ or INFP, losing a career, a business, or a familiar direction can become something much deeper than practical uncertainty.

It can bring us face to face with a painful realization of how much of ourselves became tied to being useful, dependable, or needed. Many sensitive men spend years adapting themselves to fit into places that never really felt like home.

There can be a quiet disillusionment in realizing that the life we worked so hard to build may not have reflected all of who we were. Sometimes we become so focused on being who life asked us to be that we slowly lose touch with the person we were underneath it all.

In this journal entry, I gently explore:
• Why losing work can sometimes feel like losing yourself
• The quiet grief of realizing your value became tied to what you could provide
• How moments of uncertainty can gently invite us back to the parts of ourselves we may have set aside

✨ If this reflection resonates, perhaps leave a 🕯️ or a single word below.

🍂 A Quiet Continuation
Sometimes losing yourself doesn't happen all at once. It happens so gradually you hardly notice. If that feels familiar, "When a highly sensitive man feels lost..." (https://youtu.be/x_l9VbgXqZY) continues this conversation.

XOXO,
Kate Harmony

💌 P.S. If you're longing for a place where these conversations can continue, I'd love to welcome you to one of our small online gatherings. The Library Men's Group is an ongoing weekly conversation for highly sensitive men—a gentle place to be yourself, listen, or share whatever feels present that day.

If you're looking for something more consistent, The Men's Sanctuary is a four-week journey with the same small group of men, allowing trust, familiarity, and connection to deepen over time. Our next Sanctuary begins August 4, and a few places are still available. 

ou can learn more about both gatherings here:

🌿 https://ko-fi.com/lightbearerslibrary/commissions

💌 P.P.S. If these journal entries have been a meaningful companion on your journey, you’re warmly invited to contribute toward the work of keeping this little sanctuary growing. Thank you ❤

You can contribute here: https://LightbearersLibrary.org
Or if you prefer, through Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/lightbearerslibrary

📖 Journal Notes
0:00 When the life you built no longer feels like you
2:29 Realizing how we can lose ourselves in our work
4:50 When responsibility takes you away from yourself
7:04 When stability asks you to leave yourself behind
8:10 When the life you built leaves you feeling lost
9:11 The search for who you are beyond your work
12:34 Finding yourself after the old roles disappear
15:24 Looking beneath the roles we thought defined us
16:48 Finding men who understand this transition


#highlysensitivemen #infj #infp #identity #selfabandonment #emotionalexhaustion #authenticity #purpose #selftrust #belonging #hsp #introvert #lightbearerslibrary #journaling


🌿 About 🌿

Welcome to Lightbearer’s Library — a quiet place for highly sensitive men who feel deeply, notice deeply, and wonder why it has sometimes felt difficult to simply be themselves.

The Library exists to help men reconnect with the parts of themselves they may have had to set aside. Things like their curiosity, creativity, intuition, sensitivity, and the qualities that make them who they are.

Through reflective video journal entries, I explore sensitivity, masking, childhood experiences, belonging, and what it means to come home to yourself.

I share from my own life as an INFP HSP, and from what I’ve learned through life with my INFJ HSP husband and this community.

If you’ve ever felt unseen, misunderstood, or like you had to make yourself smaller to fit into the world, you’re welcome here.

I invite you to join the Library Men’s Group if you’d like a space to be yourself in the company of other men who understand.

Stay for a while.
Kate Harmony 🌺 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, dear soul. If you are a man who's facing job loss through layoffs, or if you've already been laid off for whatever reason, or perhaps you're burnt out, or you want to, you're in a job, but it's soul sucking, or and you want to bring your life more in alignment, so you're considering leaving your job, or you're facing retirement, or you know, a physical injury has happened that you can no longer work at the job you were working at, and there's all sorts of reasons why you might be here in your life, and I just want to acknowledge the tumultuous uh time that you are in because my husband, who's also a highly sensitive man, he has been going through this for the last five, six years, and so it's I know I know what it's like from the outside, and I just want to say that your value and I guess your value does not come from your work and your job. I believe we have intrinsic value as human souls in this world, and that our work and our productivity and what we produce and all those things that doesn't make you more valuable. And I think our culture says the opposite. And I know a lot of you have said that a lot of the women that you've been in relationship with or tried to be in relationship with also have that view of things, and so that can make that really even harder if you're in relationship with someone who you know needs you to be the provider in that way. And so for all those reasons, I just acknowledge the time that you're going through, and I see you, and you're not alone here. There are lots of men who are facing the same things, and you know, I think the so we can lose our work, and I think but the bigger the bigger thing that I want to see us to think about is have we lost ourselves in that? And I think that when when we start out, so I'm gonna include myself in this, I'm also highly sensitive, but it's um when we start out in thinking about the work that we're going to do, you know, we we want it to be productive and reliable, maybe, and and successful. And for men, it's kind of like this is seen as being manly, maybe, quote unquote. And you can let me know if that's that's true, if that's what is kind of been programmed into you as what as what is the the norm. And so it's kind of that there's a bit of self-abandonment that happens when we try and fit ourselves into something that the world wants us to, and we do the kind of work that pays the bills or proves that we're enough, as opposed to the kind of work that expresses who we are, that comes out of who we are. And so it's we exchange our authenticity or yeah, our authenticity, I guess, for the it's exchanged for a job, for money, for the you know, being seen as being seen as valuable. So then when something happens and there's, you know, layoff or burnt out or all those things that prevent one from working, or or like physical injury that prevents you from working, all of a sudden there can be this identity crisis. Because the thing that held the sense of self together was, and self-worth kind of collapses, leaving an existential crisis of who are we? So it's now kind of more than just how am I gonna pay my bills, it's also the, you know, if I'm not this, then who am I? So in my own world and in my own life, you know, with my husband, I'll speak about his experience, you know, when he was growing up and as a young man, he wanted to be a musician. And he had a really good, a really good chance. You know, he he was kind of aiming to do that right at the peak of the music industry. And um, he's a Gen Xer. So he he was quite successful. He had a number one single in South Africa, and that's where he grew up. And he went to study at um Musicians Instrument Institute in Los Angeles, and he was he was headed. He was headed, you know, somewhere. But as a side note, being an INFJ, he, you know, he he made weird music and probably weirder music and lots of different kinds. So I think that's always hard when the music industry demands, you know, uh a cookie cutter sort of box and you stay in that box. So that's an aside, but I always think that's funny. But then to, you know, he eventually um immigrated to England and got a job teaching music. That's how he ended up becoming um a citizen. And so he signed up to be responsible, make make money, have a have a stable job as a college lecturer about teaching music and running the music department. And he was really good at it. He'd been teaching everything from karate to um music lessons. Like he'd been teaching for since he was like 13. So he was really good at it, but didn't like it at all. Um, well, I mean, I'm sure there was bits of it he liked, but it wasn't it wasn't coming out of his identity, like his identity of who he wanted to express in the world. And so he did that for a decade and eventually came to Canada and immigrated here and continued teaching, and then we started a YouTube channel, um, Hack Music Theory together. That was um in 2017, and we did that and we grew it to like 250,000 subscribers and millions of views and all the things, and it was really successful for a time. And we had, we have, we have, we still have it. It's still, you know, online on online courses and all the things, but I think slowly over time the his love of music was crushed and diminished, and he just found himself more and more burnt out by doing this thing that well was crushing his his love of music, but also just the teaching. He just didn't it wasn't something that came from him and wanted to be to be come out. So it broke him, I would say, um in 2020. I think that was maybe where things hit the 2021, 2020, somewhere in there, it just he just got so burnt out, and that was that. And then I think the identity crisis and the existential crisis really that's where it started. And he went down a road of you know, where are we living? Is there God? Is there not a God? What how are we supposed to live? And it's been so he while he hasn't been fully engaged in working, quote unquote, he's been just full-on research mode for years about um yeah, about God and the the nature of evil and all the things. So but it's been a dark night of the soul, and so this I idea of who is he without being a teacher and without being a musician anymore, and what is he supposed to do next, and then with the world being in complete and utter chaos with with everything, you know, and AI basically gutting our business because you know, we've got no more search traffic and no more like everybody can get every answer they want anywhere else, but us and this is not to complain, it's just to say that that's what's happened and it has left him feeling lost.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Um all sorts of emotions.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

And it's been hard, it's been hard watching that happen to him because when I first met him over a decade ago, he was so full of um enthusiasm. Not that I mean he was he was maybe slightly depressed at that point because he hate he hates Canada and he still hates Canada and like wanted to go back to England, but just couldn't couldn't bring himself to get back on a plane and um but it's he was I don't know so I guess where I wanted to say that I just feel you, I feel all of that struggle that you're going through, and so he's still trying to figure out what to do, quote unquote, next. And he he writes um, you know, he still writes for hack music theory and uh writing essays, music essays, and he's still and he does a sort of anonymous um blog writing, but he's mostly just spends his time trying to dig himself out of the pit of despair. I guess you wouldn't dig yourself out of the pit, you would try and climb out of the pit. So he's been trying to climb out of the pit. Um and but it's it's also just hard being watching that and also being in a relationship with him and feeling scared about our income and how we I'm grateful that we got out of debt and we saved as much like every penny we could while things were coming in, because I've always been, you know, our being self-employed, good things go up and down. And so um, but as the months tick by and we eat into the savings, it's just been like a little bit scary for me, being like, okay, do you have a time, time on this existential crisis? Do you know like when you're gonna figure out when you're gonna figure out what to do next?

unknown 12:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Um, but I think that's that's why for me, Light Bear's library was it was born out of my own darkness and despair and depression. And I just I needed to find a way to pull something out of my own identity to to align my life with my own, because I did a lot of work on who am I? Who, you know, if I'm not this hack music theory girl over here, um and you know, stuff with my family fell apart, and I was like, okay, so I'm not I'm not an aunt and I'm not a daughter, and like obviously, but like everything kind of fell apart. So I was like, okay. And that's why I think personality theory has helped me so much to kind of just sense the shape of who I am and understand that, oh, I'm an INFP, and actually that doesn't box me in. It it gives me a a guidance system that says, remember who you are. And so it's been helpful for me to go, okay, okay, yeah, I love these things and stop trying to be like my ESTJ mom and all the stuff that she's put in my head and and to align my life, and that's where Light Bear's Library was this thing that I I created. So it's it's not that this is my my passion. I don't suggest to anyone that they turn their passion into their work and how they make money, because it most likely will kill it, because that's been our experience. And I know there's a lot of people out there that have had that experience too. But there's a way of being that when we show up and we do what we're good at naturally, then you know, I have all sorts of other loves. But when I'm doing Light Bearer's library, I'm just showing up and being me. And that's resonating. And if it is resonating, I would really appreciate if you would support the library in whatever way, shape, or form by liking the video, by subscribing, by supporting the library through contributions to if you want to do ko-fi, the links, the links are all below. But I would really appreciate that because that's a big part of how we're how we're paying for our food right now. So um thank you for everyone who has, who has. It's I'm so grateful every day for this community and for lots of different reasons for the support of not feeling alone as well as the monetary support. That is that is huge. So thank you. But I think it's important to find out, to do the digging, to to find out who who we are underneath all the job titles and all the stuff that we think the world tells us we have value for. And personality theory can help, you know, understand ourselves more. And that's the best thing we can do. Understanding, like learning my husband was an INFJ. Well, us learning he was an IFJ, and me learning I'm an INFP made so much sense of our lives and has really helped me and him to one, have a better relationship, and that's always amazing, right? And um, and two, to kind of help guide guide the future. For him, it's we're getting there. We're getting there. But I just want to just keep encouraging you to see that your inherent value comes from you, and that that the job and what you do does not make you more or less valuable. And so, you know, again, we're not what we would produce, and our work needs to, yeah, grow out of our identity and not replace it. So if you would like to come and talk about some of the stuff that's that's going on in your life in this transition, or um then please do think of coming. I invite you to come to the library men's groups that are being that I host on Wednesday evenings. And um, I'm hoping hoping to add a European time zone, um, one that's more appropriate than one, two in the morning. There have been, there have been the the souls that have come, and I'm so grateful for them. Um so yeah, please do sign up. Uh the links are below, and we would love to, yeah, we just have such wonderful conversations about whatever men are coming through coming, coming through, you know, the last one we had, yeah. That's why this came to mind. There was men talking about, you know, being out of work and just just the and and men thinking about leaving their work or are leaving. It's it's just there seems to be a lot of that. So if you'd like a place to talk about that, then please, please join us. I am so looking forward to hearing your thoughts on all of anything that's been sparked here in your mind over where you are where you're at. I would love to just see you and cheer you on. And and I know that the comments are really helpful for other men who read them and feel feel not so alone. So they it helps you're helping other men, and that's huge. So thank you so much for being here in the library, and I'm wishing you so many blessings. Signing up for now, XOXO Kate.