We can agree that stress can be a bad thing. But what happens when you flip stress onto its head and say you are addicted to the very thing you’re trying to get rid of?

I am aware that many people do not see the connection between addiction and stress, so try to hear me out on this. 

Addiction is compulsive behavior. Not to downplay addiction, but for now, let’s repolarize the thought of what addiction is to see the compulsive behavior.

If you don’t think about the stress that way, it’s always harder to eliminate stress from your life.

I view my clients as having stress that they seem to need at the time. Also, I see them having a visceral response or a mental attraction to their stressor, forcing them to go through a self-sabotaging cycle. 

The compulsion: 

That you’re addicted to is stimuli. 

It is the need for an energetic hit of some sort. I bring awareness that most clients are on the hunt for another hint of stimuli for whatever reason.

I found four categories that I’ve coined within my ecosystem. If you seem to agree with one or more of them, you’re addicted to stress. 

I call number one “The Busy Body.”

This person can’t stop doing things. A classic sign of this is when things slow down and calm down, they instantly go and try to do something like cleaning the house or something that’s going to keep their body in motion. A lot of the time, they do something right before bed. They scroll their phone, looking for stimuli or another hit. 

It’s an external validation of external feelings. And an example of what I see in my business owners is that they have to put out fires all day. The habit sets in, so they’re always looking for something to put out or solve. They’re saying, “I’m so busy, I’m so busy, I’m so busy,” but it’s busy work. They could put out fires with a small amount of planning and calmness. Rather than taking the time to quiet down, they’re A BUSY BODY. 

They’re always looking for that external hit. And those external stimuli hit is because they can’t feel a sense of calm. Once they start to lower down, INTERNAL PRESSURE begins to percolate up, and they can’t deal with that. 

So they do something that distracts them from the actual problem within. 

If you do a couple of actions in that realm, you are “the busybody.” 

Remember, this is not bad or wrong; shaming is off the table. Being in a state of busy body is just a place where you’re a box that we’re going to hold you in for a second because you’re going to get out of it shortly.

Once you realize what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, there is a way your mind begins to create a plan.

Person number two is the “overthinker.”

The overthinker has classic signs of worry. And they can’t turn off their brain. A classic symptom they have is trouble falling asleep because they wake up and their mind turns on like a light switch, running a mile a minute. 

The overthinker goes a lot deeper than just a busybody. And it’s straightforward. In my 20 years of practice, I have seen many belief systems and thought processes around “I’m not good enough.” The over-thinker has deep roots here.

So when an over-thinker calms down, they have trouble allowing themselves to be calm, and then they overthink. The over-thinker is looking for problems or different things to worry about. That’s going to get them to see situations in the future that they give power to now. Their worry gives them the thought process the strength of saying I need to build a skill, a skill set they don’t have, which is powerful all on its own. But they allowed the fact that they don’t have that skill set to disable them. So they worry about how they’re not ready for it by starting to prepare for it like everyone else. As you begin to see you’re not good at something, you practice it, play with it, get more involved in it, and get better. But the overthinker doesn’t take action on that. The overthinker sees a problem perpetuating because they overthink what they must do to solve it. The busybody can’t stop moving and has to do something like scrolling because of their need for stimuli. The overthinker worries about things all the time. They can’t sleep at night because they’re worried about a skill they don’t have based on the belief system that tells them, “I am not good enough.” 

Number three: “The jumper” 

The jumper has anxiety written all over where the overthinker overthinks. The jumper has a skin-crawling sensation where you have to do something similar to the busybody. But it’s more nervous; it’s spikier. There’s more of an urgency that says, “I need to do something right now. Go, go, go, go, go.” They always have to feel like they’re doing something, perpetuated by anxiety. Like the overthinker, the jumper worries about things, but they also become very anxious and paralyzed by these worries. But they have extreme action to do something. And they need to; their compulsive nature keeps them moving. It shows up physically, where you want to do more. An ailment they often experience is a restless leg. And if you’ve ever had a restless leg, it’s like a bone-chilling feeling that runs through your body, and your legs want to crawl, and it’s hard. Now, meshing the mind and the body stimuli states gives you the jumper. A high level of stimuli in the body creates a busy body which shows up as the body is always active. And the overthinker is just-minded but doesn’t have the body when they’re both in line. The jumper often runs to the future, is highly agitated, worried, and highly sensitive, and their skin conduits force them to do things. 

Number four: “The problem solver”

I see way more often than any others: the problem solver. The problem solver is addicted to stress because they are looking for problems to solve. The compulsion stems from a more profound need to be of service, and that’s the tricky part. We use these stimuli to look for problems looking for this. And it has a little bit of all three meshed in one. You try to look for more and more things to solve because you want to make life easier. Easier for your spouse, employees, people around you, and loved ones. So you look for problems to solve rather than just being present. That is the crucial component.

Now the most accessible example I can give you of the problem solver in everyday life is.

The masculine energy when dealing with feminine energy.

 We’re not talking about male and female; we’re talking about how masculine energy has to be right or wrong, black or white. It’s a “give me the facts” type of energy that has to mesh with the curvy feminine energy. It comes up in husband and wife issues all the time. Remember, a wife can hold the masculine energy. It’s the quality of listening to your spouse speak and looking for the problem to solve for them. The problem-solve automatically sees their spouse’s feelings, and they want to make them feel better. The masculine needs to learn from the feminine. Once you understand both, magical stuff happens. Once you know that your spouse might not want you to fix the problem but listen to it, you start to find a solution because now you’re not trying to correct it. You’re giving them the love and support they need. So, the problem solver they have all the aspects of the busybody, the overthinker, and the jumper meshed in with “I need to solve a problem.”

But most of the time, the problem they’re trying to fix is not the root problem. It’s a surface issue, just like trying to solve a problem for your wife when all she needs is to feel connected to you. That is the power that you have to start looking for. 

I’m always looking for something to make someone happy and be of service. That is my thing. Which one is yours? How addicted to stress are you? Because that’s what this world is all about. It’s about how well you bounce back.

There are multiple ways to learn how to deal with stress. There are techniques up the wazoo, but unless you agree with where you are, you’ll never be able to get better in the long term. So learn how to slow down to speed up. Learn how to quiet your mind, calm your body, and sit with sensations that are not always pleasant. Learn to sit with them so you can understand them and eliminate them. That is how you overcome your addiction to stress. Otherwise, you’re going to divert different stimuli and manage a bunch of other tasks and duties, like juggling balls. There are only so many balls that you will be able to juggle in the air before one falls. 

Another place to start is looking at all the things you are doing or the multiple hats you are wearing, look at this blog post to dive into this aspect of energy drain.