Those who may be new to this blog or to type theory in general may already be feeling lost at my use of the term inferior preference. My October post explained how to determine which letter in your type code is the inferior preference, and we looked at what it is and what happens when it is misbehaving during times of stress. My November post was primarily about the auxiliary preference, but also covered the inferior preference's role in the family of four preferences which make up a type code and a personality.
In October I shared that as a dominant Intuitive, my natural focus on the future sometimes gets out of hand during periods of stress. During those times my dominant preference gets exaggerated, and I start imagining and worrying about all manner of negative things that could happen. But though the holiday season can indeed be overly busy and stressful, it doesn't seem to trigger in me the negative reactions that other periods of stress do.
In fact, the activities associated with Christmas, which I've always enjoyed, seem to put my inferior preference in a happy mood rather than the anxious one I wrote about in October. These activities center me on living in the moment and using my five senses. I'm guessing that since Christmas activities are usually enjoyable, during the holidays my inferior preference gets associated with fun and is less likely to erupt during periods of holiday stress. Also my dominant Intuition is less likely to get exaggerated, which usually happens before the inferior preference erupts.
It probably helps that for the past few years I've tried never to mindlessly decorate my tree as just a task to be done and checked off a list. I try to think about each ornament, where it came from and what it means to me. The very act of focusing on what's right in front of me seems to prevent me from worrying about the future.