What is passion? And how to ensure balanced passion

Passion is something you automatically get excited about. It's something you care about and something you enjoy putting time and energy into[1]. So in a nutshell, you can imagine that having passion for something is useful because it gives you something fun and valuable to spend your time with.

But how do you find your passion?

It is then helpful to know more about what passion is now and how to find a healthy passion.

Types of passion

You have two types of passion, obsessive passion and harmonious passion.

With obsessive passion, the subject of the passion is something that also becomes important to your identity , putting internal pressure on you to engage in it. This can even give you a negative mood and make you rigid in that you have to be engaged in that activity. That passion is then your one thing in your life and nothing else is really there.

A passion can become obsessive if the activity boosts your self-confidence, makes you feel more socially accepted, or because the feeling it gives you is so enjoyable that you can no longer control it (you become a bit addicted)[2].

This can also lead to feelings of guilt if you’ve been pursuing your passion at a time when you really should have been doing something else. In addition, you might find yourself thinking about your passion a lot, which can be very awkward when you’re simply having a conversation with someone.

With harmonious passion, you also internalize the activity, but can choose to engage in it or not better than with obsessive passion where you just "have to" do it. This is more convenient to retain the pleasure you get from the passion. The passion is important to you, but you are aware that there is more to your life than just that one passion.

If you have harmonious passion, for example, you notice that you feel good when you are engaged in your passion and can get into the flow of it.

When you are engaged in something other than the task of your passion, you may even feel good because, for example, you are satisfied with what you have already accomplished with your passion.

Passion and your work

It’s helpful when your work aligns with your passion, but if your work becomes an obsessive passion, it can lead to burnout and other problems.

After all, if it is an obsessive passion, you may find it difficult to leave your work behind when you are at home with your family, for example. This, in turn, can lead to arguments and other discomfort.

Those conflicts and problems caused by a lack of balance between your work passion and other parts of your life can then lead to burnout.

On the contrary, if you have harmonious passion for your work, you can more easily choose to leave your work for what it is and therefore suffer much less from that kind of conflict[3].

Having a healthy passion for your work also brings you benefits such as a sense of purpose, well-being, happiness, perseverance, success, enthusiasm, and financial gain[4].

Besides harmonious and obsessive passion, many researchers also distinguish between types of passion that fit what kinds of things you like. You may know people who often start new projects but never complete them. Those then have a passion for starting something.

For example, you might have a passion for your role as an entrepreneur. You might enjoy starting something new, developing something, and/or discovering something (source 4, p. 4).

Where does your passion lie

As you can see, it's nice to have a passion, but you have to be careful that the passion doesn't grab you completely and become an obsession.

Your passion can be fun for your job, but of course it doesn't have to be. You can also have a healthy passion in addition to your work, which, for example, allows you to work with more satisfaction because you know you have your passion in your life as well.

So your passion is something you enjoy and find important to do something with.

There are multiple ways to find your passion. For example, you can try activities outside of work until you find something you super enjoy doing and enjoy spending time on.

In addition, at work or outside work, you can also look at the role you have and what activities fit with it and give those a try.

Once you notice that a certain activity makes you feel good or even makes you lose track of time, you can argue that it is something you are passionate about.

Getting help with your passion

There are two ways you can get help with your passion. The first is to get help finding your passion. Get help stepping out of your comfort zone , building your self-confidence, and embarking on the journey toward your passion.

The second way is to get help to curb your passion if you find that you do suffer from an obsessive passion and that it doesn't actually make you at all as happy as when you had just discovered your passion.

Hypnotherapy can greatly help you get out of your comfort zone and boost your self-confidence to the point where you dare to find your passion. In addition, an advanced hypnotherapist can also capture signals from your subconscious so that you get a clear signal when your subconscious feels that you have found your passion[5].

This is an advanced technique, but it can be very useful. For example, a small unconscious movement can be a signal from your subconscious that you need to pay attention or that you have found something that "turns you on." Something that can make you happy for a long time.

To recognize this feeling, you can also start by undergoing a regression that takes you back in your mind to a moment in your life when you were passionate about something. For example, maybe you really enjoyed playing with Legos as a child, or you were always playing soccer and got into the flow of it. This sense of passion can then be linked to such a subconscious signal.

These types of cues can also play a role during hypnotherapy itself and are usually used to indicate healing in the subconscious[6].

Transforming Obsessive Passion

Hypnotherapy can also be very helpful in transforming an obsessive passion into a harmonious one. With an obsessive passion, the passion has become an important part of your identity and therefore you find it difficult to let it go at times when actually other parts of your identity are allowed to come more to the fore.

With hypnotherapy, you can reshape your identity in your subconscious, and this allows you to, for example, in addition to the part of who you are through your work, also make the part of who you are through your family, friends and hobbies more prominent. With hypnosis, you can even look beyond your own life to find your identity[7].

By creating a balance in your subconscious between your obsessive passion and other aspects of your life—and recognizing how those aspects contribute to your identity—it becomes easier to set boundaries for yourself. Then you can truly enjoy pursuing your passion and better savor the moments when you’re not engaged in it.

One obsessive passion that young people can suffer from is a passion for gaming that has slowly turned into an addiction. This is also something for which hypnotherapy offers a solution. Therapy can help you gradually become less obsessive about your passion so that you have more time for other things in your life that are also important.

In the study of hypnosis in young people who were gaming too much, it was found that hypnosis had such a strong effect on addiction that they were also able to refocus on school tasks. In this study, the students received only 1 hypnotherapy session. In addition, they were given a communication tool to help them map their behavior more closely[8].

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis can help you find your passion—or, conversely, restore your passion to a healthy state? Then join us for the free online masterclass on hypnosis.

Or sign up right away for one of our training programs. This is ideal if, for example, you want to take on a role as a coach or simply want to develop yourself.

Trainings are conducted online with sufficient assistance for 1-on-1 attention.

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