Let’s call this the process of contraction and expansion. It can happen anytime, after a creative project coming to fruition, a fun sexual encounter, career goal met, dream brought to life. It can happen during the expansion itself.
The exact feeling varies. Maybe its fear, despair, grief, shame, numbness. Overall, its a contrast from the elation or excitement of experiencing a success or bringing a dream to life.
I believe it happens for a number of reasons, but the main one that I have come to realize can be summarized as upper limiting, a term coined by Gay Hendricks that is outlined in his eye opening book, “The Big Leap”. (This is a book that I’ve re-visited many times and have been recommended in spiritual spaces and business coaching spaces alike.)
To summarize, the concept of upper limiting is something that occurs when things are going well in our lives. It can have many triggers, but the more we become aware of its presence and these triggers, the more we can recognize upper limiting as it arises.
Why? On reason is that it is a result of habitual mental and emotional patterns that we have reinforced over our lifetime. Practiced ways of thinking and being that your mind, body, and spirit have grown accustomed to over the years, thus reinforcing neural pathways over time. These are ways that our brains and bodies feel at home in a certain way of being.
When we experience a meteoric or sometimes even gentle rise in our joy, positivity, pride, accomplishment these commonly reinforced ways of being attempt to stabilize once again, often sabotaging the uplifting feelings.
It can also be understood as the shadow side of the success.
For example, in this weekend’s Virtual Retreat: Brave, Badass New Year, we identified our biggest struggles and also our greatest celebrations of 2022. Afterwards, we reflected on the relationship between these two elements.
For me personally, 2022 was a year of major ACTION- I brought so many dreams to life including producing and performing in 4 Pussy Empowered Parties, leading 3 Pussy Empowered Performance 10 week classes, expanding my solo burlesque performance career, writing, recording, & performing my first song, moving out of my home in Topanga and arriving in the Caribbean commencing a period of travel I’ve always dreamed of, amongst other accomplishments. (Yes, I’m flexing!! Its a good muscle to strengthen- you should practice sometime!)