“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.”                                               - Steve Maraboli

One of the most effective measures you can take in achieving a stress-free, pain-free, healthy, happy life is to check in with your own personality.  It’s quite possible that you are actually stressing yourself out!  And we know that chronic stress contributes to dis-ease (stress-related illness, depression, and chronic pain syndromes).

Meet the Perfectionist …

“It’s not ME creating all the stress in my life,” you say.  “It’s just that my house is a mess and I can’t seem to get any help around here!  Even when they do help, they don’t do anything right, and I have to redo everything they did, so I might as well just do it all to start with!  It’s not ME.  It’s THEM.  They are stressing me out!”

The Perfectionist lives a life filled with self-imposed pressure.  If you are a Perfectionist, you are productive, conscientious, and achievement-oriented.  You like all tasks and projects to be completed without any flaws, and you have a very clear understanding of what it means for things to be done right.   For example, in your mind, there is only one correct way to load a dishwasher, one correct way to dust the coffee table, and one correct way to wash a car.

Perfectionists are very good organizers.  They also like orderliness and control.  If you are a Perfectionist, you are a driven person who is highly motivated and self-critical.

On a positive note, Perfectionists are responsible and dependable in everything they do.  However, they tend to set impossible standards and goals for themselves and for others.

A Perfectionist does not like being wrong, and a task or job is an all-or-nothing deal:  It’s either done right, or it’s done wrong.  There is no in between in the mind of a Perfectionist.   This personality type is something you are born with, but it grows and thrives as you continuously try to prove to yourself and others that you are not inadequate or average.

Meet the People-Pleaser …

You feel just a tad bit relieved as you hang up the phone because it was hard to sound cheerful through your clenched teeth, “OMG, I can’t believe I have to rearrange my schedule for her AGAIN!”  

“She has a lot of nerve asking me to watch her kids for another few hours because she’s held up!  I don’t have time for this,” you shout inwardly. “She is really beginning to stress me out!  But, what the heck can I do?  I want her to like me and continue being my friend.”

The People-Pleaser has a great desire to be accepted and well liked.  They are nice, kind and sensitive.  If you are a People-Pleaser, you care deeply about what others think about you, and you constantly worry about disappointing others.   People-Pleasers are known to put the needs of others before themselves, even when they don’t want to be so generous.

Although a People-Pleaser may have strong opinions, they rarely disagree with others out of fear they won’t be accepted, though they are probably not aware of these feelings.

If you are a People-Pleaser, you constantly rearrange your own schedule and plans and neglect your personal desires to meet the demands of others in an attempt to make them happy.

People-Pleasers feel the need to avoid conflict and try hard not to hurt the feelings of another.  As a result, they may often fail to tell the whole truth about a situation when they’re conversing with people they care about.

The People-Pleaser is born with a nice and sweet way about them, but as they grow up, they develop a very deep need to be good in the eyes of others, and liked by everyone.  They persistently sacrifice their own needs.   This personality type has a lot in common with what Melody Beatty describes as a codependent personality.

What’s important for a People-Pleaser to remember is that neglecting their own needs and desires while pasting a smile on their face can cause frustration, anger and resentment, which leads to chronic stress and pain.

Meet the Legalist …

You walk away from your husband with a chip the size of Texas on your shoulder, and sternly, you say, “I really don’t care to argue this with you anymore.  You’re wrong, and it’s really hard to be around somebody who holds that kind of ridiculous philosophical belief. You’re totally stressing me out!”

The Legalist is characterized by rigidity and dogmatism in personal beliefs, and likes to be right in almost every situation or topic of discussion.   If you are a Legalist you are responsible, sensible, and strongly committed to keeping your word.

Legalists tend to pay a tremendous amount of attention to details and to following the rules in all situations, and they may be quick to find fault with others.  They love to give lots of constructive criticism.   Because of their strong belief that they are always right, the Legalist is often very judgmental and displays a critical attitude and intolerance toward others who don’t hold to their same beliefs.

The Legalist experiences a lot of personal guilt and hidden fear, and is highly susceptible to irritation and anger.  This Irritation and anger in the Legalist are emotions that are usually repressed rather than expressed.

Meet the Stoic …

“No, I’m not at all upset over my boyfriend cheating on me,” you say calmly as you fight back the tears.  “As a matter of fact, I really don’t feel much of anything at all, and I’m ready to just move on with my life. It’s not worth getting stressed over.”

The Stoic personality believes that strong emotions such as fear, envy, and even passionate love or deep sorrow are weak and childish emotions, which are to be avoided. These emotions make the Stoic uncomfortable; therefore, they have great difficulty expressing them.  If you’re a Stoic, you probably don’t intend to repress these strong emotions; you’ve just reached the point where you don’t feel many strong emotions.

Stoics are masters at repressing emotions.  They might acknowledge feeling a little angry or guilty or even fearful, but their face never shows it because they allow themselves to experience only a small fraction of the emotion while subconsciously repressing almost all of it.

Meet the Fear-Prone ….

“I’m so worried about my daughter moving away to college,” you tell your best friend as you pick over your lunch. You’re too stressed to eat even a bite. “I just don’t think she’s ready to live on her own.  And what if she’s walking on campus after dark and somebody snatches her up and I never see her again?”

The Fear-Prone Personality consistently anticipates that the worst will happen and may believe the world is out to get them.  They also tend to feel that life is out of control.  If it’s storming, they are thinking about the worst case scenario, like tornadoes.  If there child is out of their sight for a few seconds, their mind immediately jumps to thoughts of kidnapping or death.  They actually expect loss and harm. The principal emotions felt and buried by Fear-Prone Personalities are fear and anger. If you are a Fear-Prone Personality, you don’t view yourself as being angry because the anger is covered by the obvious surface emotions of worry and fear.

So, tell me.  Are you stressing yourself out?

If you recognized your personality as you read through these stress-prone, pain-prone personality types, it would be helpful to check in with yourself often, stay in touch with your emotions, and practice relaxation methods, such as abdominal breathing and meditation.  I also find that keeping a journal is a great way to release buried emotions and connect with your thoughts.

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved, you don’t have to sacrifice your needs to have true friends, you don’t always have to be right, it’s okay to show your emotions, and remember to live in the moment instead of constantly worrying and rehearsing the future.

Staying in touch with the characteristics of your personality can help a great deal in stopping stress before it causes you physical and/or emotional pain.  How do I know?  Because I’m like a ‘bundled’ personality (kind of like you bundle services like cable, internet, and phone).  Keeping a close eye on my perfectionist, people-pleasing, stoic personality traits, helps me to stop and think before I get so caught up in my actions that I totally stress myself out.   Just give it a try. Next time you’re feeling stressed, check in with yourself and see if any of these personality traits are contributing to your stress.

And speaking of stressed … I believe I will hit the publish button now and release this article before my perfectionism drives me crazy.  I mean, how many times can a girl read and edit one blog post?  372 times?   Probably.

Feel free to share your “AHA” moments in the comments.  You never know who you could be helping!  :)

Reference:  Dr. Scott Brady is the Founder of the Brady Institute for Health at Florida Hospital, where his powerful holistic, noninvasive treatments have helped hundreds of people overcome debilitating pain.  In his book, Pain Free for Life: The 6-Week Cure for Chronic Pain without Surgery, Dr. Brady describes the five personality types I’ve written about in this article, and explains how they create pain in our lives. I highly recommend Dr. Brady’s book to those who are suffering with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and stress-related illnesses.