In this weekly series, we’ll offer up a little wordly inspiration to kick-off your week.
Some simple wisdom, elegant and accessible. From one soul to another.
We hope it helps you ease into your day.
xo

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Upper Limit Problems 

Last week, I sat down to create my 2015 game plan. With a roll of kraft paper, sticky notes, assorted markers, a creativity candle, some crystals and my dreams, I created a life-sized work of art.

For the first time in my 37 years, I put sparkly pen to paper and wrote down what I was dreaming of for my business. With Sam Smith crooning in the background and a cup of rooibos chai, it felt like I could conquer the world with my plans for insanely delicious sensory experiences.

When I felt complete, I hung it on my wall, stepped back and grinned from ear to ear. This. This is what’s going to rock my world next year. This is what’s going to change the game for me, for my love, for my family, for everyone. I was high on life (and goal-setting — who knew?!).

That night, when my guy arrived home from work, I told him about my day and then suggested we go to Target. I thought I would treat myself to a something sweet as a “Congratulations, you just made magic today” gift to myself. After spending an hour wandering around the store, we ended up walking out with cocoa krispy cereal, mac & cheese, a gluten-free frozen pizza, a pack of Oreo’s and a bag of Jalapeño chips. Oh, and some Orbitz gum. You know, just ‘cause.

We raced home and I proceeded to devour 3/4 of the bag of chips and a heaping bowl of mac & cheese and chased it with a few Oreo’s for good measure. I sat on our peacock blue chair, staring at the wall, in a massive food coma. And I felt both horrible (physically) and like I had scratched a seriously annoying itch (emotionally).

As we lay in bed later that night, I thought about what I’d done that day. I had felt the highest of highs and then reached down and scraped the bottom of life’s barrel. I pondered my behavior and for the first time ever, I was able to articulate what had just took place a mere hour or two before. It felt like an A-Ha! heard ‘round the world. After years of this same pattern I was able to see so clearly what my actions meant and why I had brought myself to the point of self-induced nausea.

I sat up, and promptly confessed to my love, why I had just eaten all that crap. I had such a feeling of hope, excitement, pure JOY at the possibility of what was ahead for The Girl Who Knows. And in stirring up all these beautiful emotions, I was bumping up against my own “Upper Limit”, my joy ceiling if you will.

I recognized in that moment that my set point for joy is rather low. Planning the creative trajectory for my business had me bumping up against that set point and in my deep desire to create abundance for myself, I began to feel uncomfortable, unsafe and uncertain. So I used food to bring myself back to what felt more familiar and safe.

In Gay Hendrick’s popular book, The Big Leap, he speaks to the Upper Limit issue:

“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.”

It still makes no sense to me — that somehow putting myself into a food coma is preferable to experiencing greater levels of joy and happiness. It sounds absurd. BUT, for many people, including myself, this is a sad reality. Sharing this revelation immediately brought me some emotional relief and I slept soundly.

The next morning I woke up with a junk food hangover (to be expected), but interestingly I didn’t feel guilty about my indulgent night. I didn’t feel bad for veering way off of my generally healthy diet. I acknowledged that it was what I needed to do in order to wake up to what the behavior was really all about.

As I sipped on hot lemon water, I went back through the previous day, noticed when I began feeling like I was head-butting the edges of my self imposed joy box and thought about other things I might have done to stretch, grow, feel into this new place of expanding joy, while still giving myself comfort and a sense of safety.

Bursting through our upper limits isn’t easy. It requires a huge amount of courage, heart and pure chutzpah.

Whether you’re stretching into a brand new career path, aching to quit the day job, yearning to start a family or to begin a healthier, more active lifestyle — you will probably come face-to-face with your own upper limit. This self-imposed ceiling is there to help you feel safe. But it is also meant to be broken.

I found this to be quite inspirational as it relates to learning how to stretch beyond our upper limit:

“Your capacity expands in small increments each time you consciously let yourself enjoy the money you have, the love you feel, and the creativity you are expressing in the world. As that capacity for enjoyment expands, so does your financial abundance, the love you feel and the creativity you express. If you focus for a moment, you can always find some place in you that feels good right now. Your task is to give the expanding positive feeling your full attention. When you do, you will find that it expands with your attention. Let yourself enjoy it as long as you possibly can.”

If you have been stuck on the verge of reaching your dreams and goals, but can’t quite seem to scale the wall, it doesn’t mean you are flawed or destined for failure or not good enough. It doesn’t mean you have bad luck, sucky timing or just can’t get it together. You’ve simply got an upper limit problem. And that my friend, is the good news. Because an upper limit problem is completely, 100% dissolvable. With awareness and attention (and learning to live from your own individual zone of genius), there’s nothing you can’t do.

Questions + thoughts to muse on this week:
Where are you bumping up against your own upper limit? How much love and abundance and creativity are you willing to allow? How are you getting in your own way of having those things? Ponder these questions while incrementally increasing your capacity for joy and love, in the days and weeks to come. And if you want to learn more, I highly recommend grabbing The Big Leap.

xo