Hello!

 
I wonder if you’ve heard of “The Upper Limit Problem”?

Gay Hendricks wrote a book called, “The Big Leap”, and in it he talked about the ULP ~ in his description, it’s where we have a level of ‘success’ that we are comfortable with – whether that be about our relationship, our finances, our success, or our health – and when we go over that level, something will tend to happen to bring us back down to the accustomed level.

I have a slightly different way of looking at it, and a slightly different perspective as to the cause.
 

I wonder if you remember times when your child was feeling huge delight when they first stood up / walked / wrote their name / danced on stage / swam without floaties / etc. etc.

Or perhaps you’ve seen them saying, “Mum, LOOK AT ME!” as they performed a feat like doing a cartwheel, getting their hot wheels car to do a trick, riding their bike, etc.

Many times in our lives we feel the joy and exuberance of being able to do something, of learning something new, or of doing something that we absolutely love.
 

When we are children and teens, how we are responded to at that moment has a profound effect.

Perhaps you have memories of childhood or teenage years where you wanted to be seen at those moments, and your parents or teachers or friends weren’t able to mirror your joy, delight, satisfaction, exuberance, and sense of competence.

Maybe you remember them being distracted, or disconnected, or shaming, or belittling, or minimising your experience.

What happens is, that we internalise those responses.
 

In order to feel deeply comfortable with competence, joy, satisfaction and delight in what we are doing, we need early mirroring of those feelings and experiences.

If our parents or teachers aren’t able to mirror that accurately, often because that wasn’t mirrored in them, then we don’t then feel comfortable and at home with our competence and joy and delight at being able to do things and being seen in the joy of being able to do things.

What happens, each time we come out into the room or the stage or the class, with excitement and joy, is we internalise what happened instead.

Our joy and exuberance and delight gets dampened, due to shame and flatness and comparison and simply their incapacity to shine back our joy back to us.

And so, we become deeply uncomfortable when we get close to doing something we really love, or being really competent, or shining our gifts in the world, because we feel those old feelings that happened back then. They sit inside us, ready to be heard.
 

I’d love to share my recent experience of this.

A week or so ago I had the phrase come to me – “I’m willing to hear and be with every feeling inside of me.”

Well, I guess that is an invitation!

Yesterday, I was feeling so happy. I’ve let myself have things I haven’t let myself have before. 

I have someone painting my decks for me. I bought myself a dress that feels more me than anything I’ve ever had. 

I was playing my favourite song. I was full of love and joy with my children.

We decided we’d have a family movie night. We talked about going to get movie snacks. My children didn’t want to come, so they stayed with my Mum (who lives in our back garden).

I asked them not to go on screens. They said that they would play a drawing game together.

I was so happy as I went out, buying our favourite food for dinner and snacks for the movie. I felt so joyful and alive.

When I got home, my son was sitting in front of the screen.

In that moment, I had a huge reaction. Way bigger than the situation warranted.

I went into the bedroom and I sobbed and sobbed.

I didn’t know what the sweet spot was, but I knew it was something really big, because it was WAY out of proportion to what had happened.

I cried and cried. My daughter (14) came to sit with me. She asked me what was going on. I said I didn’t know yet but it was a sweet spot.
 

It was only later, when I used my Inner Loving Presence Process, that I realised what it was.

The memory I went back to was when I was 22, and I’d finished my degree in psychology.

I had got one of the 2 firsts in our year (and the other student was a mature student).

I had worked SO hard in my degree. Part of the motivation was a longing to receive acknowledgment from my Dad.

I got my results, and I phoned my parents up.

My Dad said, “you must be pleased.”

That was it. 

No joy, no celebration, no acknowledgment.

As I reconnected with my 22 year old self, I felt devastated. 

And I just stayed with myself. The feelings went so deep. I cried, as my Inner Loving Father loved me and heard me.
 

And of course, this repeated earlier experiences in my life. I realised that my Dad had never really been able to deeply and wholeheartedly celebrate my achievements, because of the pain he had around his own.

And I saw how the situation with my son – my delight and joy, only to come home and see him on a screen, reminded me of the huge disappointment of simply not being met in my joy.
 

You see, it isn’t just about meeting our child in her pain.

It’s also about being able to meet her, see her, acknowledge her, mirror her, love her, celebrate her, in her joy, her competence, her passion, and her delight.
 

I wonder if any of this resonates with you.

Did your parents and teachers celebrate you, mirror you and appreciate you when you were able to do new things, when you stood up with your unique gifts, when you shone your light?

And if not, do you recognise old feelings coming up to be heard, especially when you take steps out into the world, such as writing your blog, starting a business, singing or speaking in public, doing a dance performance, running a webinar, etc.?

I believe that when we are able to compassionately listen to those feelings of disappointment, hurt, sadness, and whatever they were, from earlier times when we stood out and shone, then we are more and more able to go out and do what we want to do – to live our purpose, to be who we really are, to be excited and exuberant and shine our own unique light.

Not only that, but the more we can be around people who DO see our light, and celebrate our achievements and gifts, and can BE with our joy and delight, the more we can internalise that, and feel deeply comfortable with those things in ourselves, and can mirror them ourselves too!

And I love my Inner Loving Presence Process for doing both of those.
 

If you’ve been thinking about doing my ILPP Course, you can find out more by CLICKING HERE.

And if you want to sample it first, to get a taster, you can access the free taster, which is the first five days of the course, by CLICKING HERE.

And if you want to read my $6 ebook, “Inner Loving Mother, Outer Loving Mother,” which goes in to the kind of things our Inner Loving Mother can say to us, and what we can say to our children as the Outer Loving Mother, then CLICK HERE.

I also have a free ebook, which talks more about how we internalise our experiences with our mother, father, friends and partners, and how they become our inner dialogue. You can get that by CLICKING HERE.

Oh and another thing! Last year I did Jana Kingsford’s Big Dreams Bootcamp.

Jana is my mentor, and without her, I wouldn’t be doing all these courses. I now have 16 running.

Big Dreams Bootcamp gave me the practical tools to actually structure my time and GET THINGS DONE!

I am an affiliate of Jana’s, but I’ve actually never used any affiliate links. I just love her work and love sharing it! But now I have my own affiliates, I’m ready to stand up and be her affiliate! 

So, if you want to sign up for Big Dreams Bootcamp, which starts on Monday, you can sign up HERE through my affiliate link!

And BDB is so relevant to this post – because I am PASSIONATE about us shining our lights and sharing our gifts, and Jana has helped me do that in spades!