This week sees a 3.5 inch, 2 kg gain after a sequence of events that has brought me greater understanding of where I am. That trined with reading '
The Big Leap' and having trauma therapy/coaching by way of
Somatic Experiencing (life changing stuff!!). So here is a post to acknowledge a pattern I have entered into. I have been hovering around 15 stone for the last 4 or 5 weeks now, all at varying stages of progress... being on track, sabotaging, restarting and refocusing... but that seems to be the spot where I hover, and its also the weight I had been most of my life before I had traumatic events that led to significant gains. This week i've had to revisit some of those memories and sensations as a result of random/coincidental (or purposeful?) life circumstances and also regular trauma coaching. I was recommended the book mentioned by my SE practitioner. Its very interesting..
It talks about an 'upper limit problem'... a sort of comfort zone or glass ceiling of functioning at which we settle, and resist changing from. We're used to being there, even if its bad it is where we feel safest and even if its great, it isn't our fullest potential being realised. The book explains why we like to stay safe and how our life experiences and upbringings/circumstances impact on how or what keeps us stuck. The book is all about cognitive processes, how we can think our way out of it, but when there is trauma, it isn't always that simple. And you'd be surprised how small something has to be for the nervous system to perceive it as trauma it needs to protect us from in future. In short, its anything or any time we didn't feel safe (mentally, emotionally, physically) that wasn't resolved, or any time we couldn't stand up for ourselves or speak our truth, any time we couldn't get away from something stressful, scary or infuriating... in short any time our nervous systems were full of stress and we didn't get to resolve those charges in our nervous system. Not everyone who finds something traumatic gets trauma every time (big or small) but we all are able to get it. So both our beliefs about what we're doing being good, safe or comfortable enough, as well as our past and our traumas, keeps us stuck.
I have reached a plateau in my life in multiple areas at once. I am in a comfort zone, which isn't comfortable because we have a natural propensity to want better for ourselves (even if we don't believe we deserve it). And if we step out of that comfort zone, we cause or draw to us things which 'put us back in our place'. We might self sabotage, we might keep stubbing our toes, might cause or find ourselves in arguments, might lose things or be late all the time... we basically become calamity Jane. We do it when we're in the wrong place as much as we do when we're trying to move into the right place. I have been calamity Jane the last few weeks! 15 stone is my level of comfort zone. Having great ideas and seeing glimpses of what I am capable of is a comfort zone, but pushing past and achieving lots with those skills is past my comfort zone. I had reached a level of financial security which was outside of my comfort zone and so I overspent to rock the boat - not consciously, but now I'm not as financially secure and am having to repair that. Things were all going great... too great for what i'd gotten used to, and so these sabotaging instincts kicked in... because when you aren't reallllly trying.... you can't fail. When you are staying where you are.... well thats what you and everyone else expects of you. It's easy, even if it doesn't feel good to be there.
It felt excruciatingly painful to me to be nearly 20 stone and stuck and stagnant, because that wasn't my comfort zone. That was below the threshold, so it was almost too easy to get out of it once I thawed the trauma that had kept me there. But where I have reached recently, that was above my threshold apparently. And I have frozen back down into a comfortable place. So this 15 stone barrier onwards, I am going to start calling 'my upper limit' challenge. I will start referring to that in my diary, hence the long explanation incase anyone wondered wtf I am on about!!
So this week I had to have a medical appointment which was reminiscent of a traumatic event, I have had lots of arguments, I have significantly overspent, even after spending time making a fool proof budget so I could get a Nanny 2 days a week so I could set up a new business, and yesterday I tried to get drunk and ate loads of junk. Yesterday was a culmination of days of headbutting my glass ceiling. Of daring to reach past my upper limit and crashing and burning as I tried to push past. And feck i'm sure i've broken my toe from the number of times i've stubbed it so badly.
My plan is to send some tender acknowledgements of being at this limit and to try and support myself past it. I am not sure what I am actually going to do... maybe i'll write my upper limit problem a letter. Maybe I will make it a person inside me thats fearful and stagnant that just needs support to believe in itself, in change, in all the joy it can find...
So there you have it. The story of being stuck for the past few weeks, and the beginnings of a plan to get unstuck. Feeling rubbish today and I am back on my no carb few days before 4 products again. I also just remembered that I always used to be able to do 12 weeks with no 'cheating/falling', so thats an upper limit problem for me too...
"I commit to rising far beyond my upper limit and being happy, joyful, abundant and healthy with more comfort than I ever could have dreamed of".
sure I have gut candida overgrowth.
