If you’re curious about what this is, how this might show up in your life and what to do if you do indeed have an Upper Limit Problem, keep reading…
What’s an Upper Limit Problem?
I’ll be honest, the reason I’m bringing this whole Upper Limit Problem topic up with you is because I’ve recently had a flood of wonderful things happening in my own life: I recently got engaged, had several of my blog posts get picked up by a major mental health website, fulfilled some big career milestones, and have just generally been feeling good in my personal life, too.
And then recently I noticed how uncomfortable I was starting to feel about all these good things.
I started to notice how, frankly, unfamiliar and uncomfortable I was with this whole new level of wonderfulness. I started to reflect on this and dig into it to figure out why. That’s when I remembered this concept called “the Upper Limit Problem” that psychotherapist Gay Hendricks PhD coined. And I started to get curious if this was playing out in my own life.
Upper Limit Problems, according to my understanding of what Dr. Hendricks explains, assumes we have a sort of internal thermostat for how good we are willing to let ourselves feel.
Our thermostat level.
When we surpass our set “thermostat level,” we unconsciously or consciously act out. This is to help regulate our internal emotional state back to a place where it feels more comfortable, more familiar. That’s when Upper Limit Problems start to show up.
Upper Limits Problems – or in other words, how much joy and goodness we’re willing to let ourselves experience before we start to self-sabotage – like most of our patterns and behaviours, were likely formed by some cluster of formative early life experiences and messages which showed and told us (implicitly or explicitly) “You’re only allowed to feel *this* much goodness.”
When we surpass the level of goodness we unconsciously or consciously believe we’re allowed to have, it’s common for most of us to feel discomfort and perhaps even to act in self-sabotaging ways.
Examples of Upper Limit Problems.
What are some examples of how Upper Limit Problems might show up in your own life? The leading questions to the blog post are great examples. But here are some other ways upper limit issues can manifest:
- An inability to tolerate happiness and peace and calm. Instead, scanning the horizon for danger, problems to solve, or things to worry about. Because being anxious is more familiar than being at ease;
- Picking fights with your honey when everything’s going swimmingly because being in a state of conflict is more familiar;
- “Forgetting” deadlines, important emails, or critical details in your work after leaping to a new level of growth. Because struggling at work is more familiar than succeeding;
