I love adrenaline and how it makes me feel energetic, confident, important, even elated. And I get more work done in less time!
Adrenaline is one of the body’s natural antidepressants and anti-anxiety agents. It’s truly a wonder drug! Just writing this sentence I’d like to get a hit of that stuff now!
It’s difficult to stop abusing adrenaline because the come down is depressing, defeating, and deflating.
There are reasons why people like me are Type A or resist boredom like the plague. (I wrote about these issues in my recent devotionals: “Rest: Confessions of a Type A Leader” and “Rest: The Other Side of Boredom.”)
In the early years of my ministry I unwittingly relied on adrenaline to excel in my service “to the Lord”.
But I didn’t realize how much my ego was involved. “Redeem the time!” from Ephesians 5:16 was my mantra, as I raced from one thing to the next and poured myself into one urgent project after another! (I’ve come to call this an example of a “Biblical Blunder that Bruises and Confuses.”)
To be clear, adrenaline doesn’t just feel good — it is good. God designed our bodies to manufacture adrenaline to give us a needed boost for dealing with emergencies and big challenges. But when we overuse this it creates problems.
Are you depending on adrenaline? What would people who know you well say?
Here are a few of the questions in the “Hurry Sickness Survey” in our book Your Best Life in Jesus’ Easy Yoke:
- Are you often in a hurry?
- Do you often work with intensity on urgent things?
- Do you tend to do two or three things at the same time?
- Do you regularly rely on caffeine to feel energetic and focused?
- Do you keep yourself stimulated with activity, entertainment, or noise?
- When you’re resting do you feel fidgety or guilty?
When we provide Soul Shepherding for pastors and leaders who are relying on adrenaline there are two main and contrasting treatments we recommend: solitude and therapy. They work together in a recovery program which in our Easy Yoke book we call “Hurry Up and Be Still!”
In therapy (or with another soul friend) you can share your feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, or emptiness. By receiving heartfelt empathy, genuine compassion, and gentle insights from your “Christ’s ambassador” you’ll grow to experience God’s friendship, joy, and power for your life and ministry to others (2 Corinthians 5:20).
If you need help with coming down from adrenaline to be more emotionally engaged with God, yourself, and others contact us.
Rest: Pray & Play With Jesus
Do you believe Jesus is fun?
Join Bill & Kristi as they look at Jesus the joy giver and his intimate connection with his Daddy…free of burden, free of anticipation, full of joy! Jesus is inviting us to play!
Listen to this week’s “Soul Talks” podcast
