The root causes of achievement addiction

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It’s been five years since I started my path as a Subconscious Mind Reprogrammer. Five enriching years of self-growth and growing as a supporter of others.

It’s also been twelve years since the burnout experience that I had.

Throughout all these years, I have been diving into the depth of human psyche to understand what the subconscious mind is and how it works.
This underworld is a vast universe, yet as a Piscean, I love it. I accept that I will always be learning about this until my time to leave this earth comes.

I started doing this for me, and in the last five years, I started sharing what I’ve learnt along the way through my work with my clients.

Having me as my main stakeholder, I wanted to explain to myself clearly what got me into burnout.
I’ve been gathering many puzzle pieces of answers since 2009. In 2018, another big puzzle piece became clear. I concluded that I had behaviours resembling being addicted to achieve and grow for years before the burnout, obviously at self-care cost.

It was a big stamp – addiction, one that I felt very uncomfortable with. Yet, in my heart, I felt there was truth in it.

So, I continued to dive deeper. Shame and guilt were there with me for a while. Mindfully, as I dig deeper, I also continued with my healing journey. The two were inseparable. Over time, the shame and guilt dissipate, self-compassion grew, and I could articulate better what I discovered.

In April 2019, I released a podcast episode about achievement addiction.
Many people responded to this. Conversations happened, healing journeys commenced, and state of being transformed.

I’ve learnt a great deal facilitating processes for others, so it is time to share one specific aspect of achievement addiction: the root causes.

My friend, Julie Grauel, kindly welcome my invitation to facilitate this reflection. Similarly, we both love to explore the subconscious mind universe.

I hope to provide you with a perspective that can help you start your healing journey through self-healing or getting support from others.

After we recorded this episode, I continued reading a book by Gabor Maté, MD- In the Realm of HUNGRY GHOSTS – Close encounters with Addiction – and I landed in the following paragraph:

Any passion can become an addiction, but then how to distinguish between the two? The central question is: who’s in charge, the individual or their behaviour? 

It’s possible to rule a passion, but an obsessive passion that a person is unable to rule is an addiction. 

And the addiction is the repeated behaviour that a person keeps engaging in, even though he knows it harms himself or others. How it looks externally is irrelevant. The key issue is a person’s internal relationship to the passion and its related behaviours.

I know exactly what he means, and I know now how achievement addiction and passion look and feel differently in my body. When I am in the passion zone, I am at ease with all – growing, achieving, and caring for myself.

Take time to listen to this episode. Do it multiple times. There is a lot of reflection here. 
Please share it with others too.

And when you feel you want support transforming your achievement addiction to move into the passion zone, have a chat with me.

With love,
Astuti

Some reading recommendations:

In the Realm of HUNGRY GHOSTS – Close encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté, MD.
It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. by Mark Wolynn.
The Biology of Beliefs by Bruce H. Lipton PhD.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, MD.
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Emilia Nagoski DMA.

Timestamp:

00:00:00         Opening

00:01:30          The behaviours of an Achievement addict.

00:08:25          How one becomes an achievement addict. What addiction is and what causes addictive behaviours.

00:17:00          When disconnections that lead to addiction can happen and what they can do to our psyche development.

00:38:30          Why it is difficult to let go of achievement addiction and what needs to happen to help the journey of transforming achievement addiction.

00:42:30          Key steps to get to the roots of achievement addiction.

00:47:30          How ancestral trauma contributes to achievement addiction. Support to consider to let go of the achievement addiction on the subconscious mind level

00:58:20          What feeds achievement addiction.

01:00:00          Fundamental steps to transform achievement addiction, including how Astuti helps her achievement addict clients.

01:08:00          Summary and closing.

I’d love to hear from you. Please write to me at astuti@upliftmylife.today for input, feedback and suggestions. Thank you!

#achievementaddiction #gogetter #burnout #mentalhealth #upliftmylifetoday #risefromburnout #intentionallife #selflove #selfcare #rttworks #bodycode #emotioncode #inheritedfamilytrauma #astutimartosudirdjo

Copyrights etc.:

Music used in this episode: “On My Way” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License