Hello Friends,
Have you ever noticed how hard it can be to hang on to good feelings?
For one thing, our brains are hardwired to cling to unpleasant experiences (in order to analyze and avoid them) and designed to let pleasant experiences pass through. (Sad but true!)
To compound this conundrum, most of us have what’s known as an “upper limits problem.” When we experience good things, part of us is looking around suspiciously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Everything seems so good,” we think to ourselves. “What’s going to go wrong now?”
We inherited some of this from our ancestors, many of whom were driven out of their places of origin. “Don’t get too comfortable,” the memories in our blood whisper. “Don’t even look too closely at what’s wonderful, or let yourself feel too much of this good feeling you’ve got right now. Don’t get cocky! In a moment, it can all be taken away.”
Deep down, we feel the wisdom in our ancestor’s warning. We know that no matter how good we have things, in the end, we can’t keep it. In the end, we’re all going to die.
How’s that for living joyfully?
Well, the turnaround is, if we stop ourselves from enjoying life because everything is temporary, we stop ourselves from truly living. Then we wonder why we’re not happy.
Children do not have this problem! They live in the now, and experience every feeling to the fullest, until we drudge it out of them. This may be why Jesus said that to enter the kingdom of heaven we must become like little children.
Even though everything in life IS temporary, that’s no reason to turn away from it, or to limit our enjoyment of it in the now. The present moment is all that there is. Who am I to stop enjoying it, out of fear for a future that doesn’t even exist?
Is your relationship with life limited? Do you make your life a problem to be solved and call that “responsibility”? Or is your life a gift to be savored? Could it be?
Is your joy limited? Or limitless?
In their book, Conscious Loving, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks describe the “upper limits problem” as the only problem we need to solve in order to enjoy, really and truly enjoy, our relationships – with life, and with each other. Of course, we all have our personal issues to work through. But the main thing blocking us from experiencing joy in the moment is the fact that many of us are so out of practice with it.
When we do feel things going right, that part of us that’s looking around for what’s about to go wrong will often, unconsciously, dredge up something for us to worry about or feel bad about. We might go around blaming our boss, or our partner, or our parents, or some event for our unhappiness, but in reality, we are the ones stopping ourselves from feeling good.
Let me say it clearly: we stop ourselves from feeling good. We place a limit on our joy. Unconsciously. Out of fear. That is the “upper limits problem.”
Ready to stop doing that? Me too!
The first and most important step is to notice when you invoke the limit. Then, you can start to stay with the good feelings, the feelings of happiness, contentment, satisfaction, elation, just a little bit longer. We really can teach ourselves to thrive at the upper regions of enjoyment. It just takes a little practice.
I notice that I place limits on my enjoyment with my children by remembering what we need to do next. Maybe my daughter is snuggling with me. It is so sweet! But after a few minutes, I often say, we need to comb your hair. Or I call to mind some other “next-thing-to-do.” Aha! It may be true that we have things to do, but my mental insistence on that “doing” is also a limit I am placing on our enjoyment of “being.”
The good news? I can change that. And so can you.
I can hold an awareness of the things I need to do without using that awareness to squash joy.
When I was in my teens, I went through a period of depression, as many of us do. I used to tell myself that for every depth there would be a corresponding height. That still feels true for me. But I haven’t always faced those heights with curiosity and enthusiasm. Many of us are no strangers to exploring the dark side. Could it be true, as Marianne Williamson says, that the light scares us more?
In Jin Shin Jyutsu, the energy work that I practice, we have a saying: “there is no upper limit to harmony.”
No upper limit. That sounds like a fun practice to me! Are you in?
Namaste,
Erin
p.s. In January 2015, I’ll be launching a new program, Living Joyfully 101. We’ll explore ways of moving beyond the “upper limits problem” and into a life of more joy. We’ll look at the things that get in the way of living authentically, and we’ll work with some amazing tools for moving past those obstacles and into living the life you want. If this sounds like good clean fun to you, click the link to email me: radiantenergyforlife@gmail.com and put “101” in the subject line. I will make sure you are among the first to hear more details!