The Unhealthy Addiction To Stress!

Something I’ve noticed in my work (and life!) is how many of us seem to feel that stress is an inevitable by-product of a successful life. It seems that somehow we have been conditioned into believing we cannot have ‘good things’ without stress (which might take the form of tension or ‘hard work’).

We often do see results from hard work and tension. The later we stay in the office and the more we sacrifice our weekends to work overtime, the more likely we are to get promoted. We see those ‘at the top’ and we understandably but incorrectly (and often unconsciously) link stress and success together.

This creates a catch-22. We become addicted to stress. We start to truly believe that the ‘positive things’ we’ve had in our life are due to the negative experiences and not the positive ones. If we stopped stressing would everything we’ve worked towards vanish? This is something many of us fear happening, and so we continue to put the (often unnecessary) hours in to maintain a position we fear is impossible without doing so.

Like any addiction, we incorrectly link the positive feelings we have as a result of something with the external substance. It is not the stress that has caused our success. In many cases, our success is in fact in spite of our stress. If we stop stressing, the thing we love does not vanish. Our status, our success, our identity does not vanish.

When we know who we are at our deepest level, we come to know this is not possible.

We do not need stress.

We can let it go.

Right now!