Ep 25 - The Upper Limit Problem: Why You Self-Sabotage When Life Starts Going Well

What if the reason you’re not expanding… isn’t because you’re not capable—but because you’re not available for it?

In this solo episode of Midlife Audacity, I’m bringing you into something I’m actively learning in real time as I begin reading The Big Leap. This isn’t a “I’ve mastered it” conversation—this is a come with me conversation.

We’re diving into the Upper Limit Problem… the subtle, often unconscious ways we pull ourselves back just as life starts to feel good.

You’ll hear real, relatable examples of how this shows up in midlife:
 • When things are finally clicking at work… and you start second-guessing yourself
 • When you’re feeling happy and at peace… and then create tension in your relationship
 • When your children become more independent… and it quietly shakes your identity
 • When life feels good… and your mind starts waiting for the other shoe to drop

This isn’t about self-sabotage in obvious ways.

It’s about the quiet, everyday patterns that keep you stuck in what’s familiar—even when you’re ready for more.

We also explore the connection between mindset and nervous system regulation, and why your body may interpret expansion as unsafe… even when it’s exactly what you want.

I’ll leave you with a series of powerful reflection questions to help you notice where you might be holding yourself back—and what becomes possible when you allow yourself to stay in the good just a little longer.

This is the exact work we’ll be diving into inside my May Book Study Seminar, where we don’t just read the book… we live it.

If you’ve been feeling the pull toward something more—but also noticing yourself retreating… this episode is for you.

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Book Study Seminars:  Soul School has opened up new room called, Book Study Seminars.  This room meets four times a year to read, study and unpack not only the words, but our lives, together.  Our spring theme is identity expansion and we start May 7th. For four weeks, we’ll study together using, The Big Leap by Gay Henricks, as our anchor text. Together, we will explore what has been keeping you in your upper limit, how your identity may be capping your expansion, and how to begin feeling safe stepping into your next level self.

Soul School: A curriculum for midlife women who are ready to remember their wisdom, protect their energy, project their power and come back into alignment. You don’t need fixing. You need to remember. Open for enrollment NOW.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Midlife Audacity. I'm your host, Celeste Dona, teacher, writer, speaker, and guide for women who are ready to rise into their next chapter boldly, soulfully, and unapologetically. Hey, hey, and welcome back to today's solo episode. So I finally started reading The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. It's been on my list for quite some time, and it's going to be my next book in my book study seminar that I'm hosting in May. So I have been reading the book so that I can sort of prepare the things that I want to talk about and teach and facilitate in those discussions. So I'm coming to you guys with in this episode as not someone who has figured this all out, as someone who's really learning it. And I want to bring you along on that journey with me. So I think many of us believe we'll finally feel confident, expansive, and free once we've figured it all out. And, you know, once we've read enough, once we've learned enough, healed enough. Yet what I'm starting to really see, even just in these first couple of chapters, is that the real work is never about getting there. It's about noticing in real time how we pull ourselves back. And this is something really fascinating and something that I really think deserves a conversation. The idea is we all have this kind of internal set point for how much success, joy, love, ease, and expansion we actually allow ourselves to experience. And when we start to exceed that, something in us activates. Not because something's wrong, but because it now all of a sudden feels really unfamiliar. And as I've mentioned before on this show, when something is unfamiliar, the mind and the body are going to read that as unsafe. I'm going to say that again. The mind and the body are going to read that as unsafe. So without even realizing it, we start to self-sabotage. Not always in obvious ways. A lot of times it's in very subtle, everyday ways. And when I was reading this morning and yesterday, I really started thinking about how this doesn't just show up in like these big moments in our life, but it shows up in the most normal parts of our lives. Moments where on the surface, life is actually good. And yet something in us tightens and questions and disrupts. And, you know, that's the thing that I'm starting to really think about as I'm reading this, even in my own life, because I feel like I'm at a point where things are going pretty good. I have had serious discomfort and struggle in my life at various times. And right now I can honestly say that life is feeling pretty good. And dare I say, even easy. And then I kind of think about, hmm, okay, if that's the case, what is going on that is preventing me from even more joy, more happiness, more ease, more love, you know? And it's because things feel really comfortable right now. And why would I disrupt that? You know? Why would I disrupt that? And some of you listening today might say, Oh, well, good for her. I'm so glad that her life is happy and feeling really good. My life is not happy and feeling really good right now. And that could be true for you. Um, but the point of this conversation is to start thinking about how this upper limit issue might be coming in very sneakily and preventing you, sabotaging you from actually feeling fulfillment, joy, peace, happiness, love, ease, all the things that we strive for. So here's an example. Like, let's say things at work are finally clicking. You're being recognized, you're speaking up more, maybe you're stepping into a new level of leadership, right? And then out of nowhere, what happens in your mind? You start overthinking. Like, did I say everything that I wanted to say at that meeting? Should I have said something different? How was that received? You start to hesitate in sharing your ideas. You start to procrastinate on the things that you know could move you forward. Like you, something's holding you back from actually doing those things. Or you tell yourself that it's too much. You know, like this is fine. I don't need to exceed beyond where I'm at. And then you start to pull back. And this is not because you're not capable, it's because a part of you doesn't feel safe in being seen at that level. Right? And that might be a situation that's happening for you. Here's another example. Let's say you have a really good day, you feel connected to yourself, things are flowing, you actually feel happy, and then you get home and you nitpick something your partner said. You bring up an old issue, you shift the energy in the room, it's subtle, but it literally changes everything. And if you're being honest, it's almost like you were at peace, but peace felt so unfamiliar, maybe even undeserved. So you create just enough tension to bring yourself back to what your body knows. I can certainly relate to that second example that has shown up for me more times than I can count. And in reading this book, I've started to think about, huh, why am I doing that? And it's because my body doesn't feel safe feeling completely happy, right? Completely at peace. So my mind starts to bring me back to what does feel comfortable, which is a little bit of that tension, right? Like, oh yeah, this feels better. Like the bickering and the arguing and the, you know, maybe not being nice to each other type of behavior, that feels better than this pure happiness and joy that I'm feeling. Here's another example that maybe you can relate to. Let's say if you have children, um, you know, your child starts to become more independent. I think a lot of us at midlife start to notice our children are growing up. They are not little kids anymore. They start gaining this independence, they're making their own decisions, they need you a little bit less. They're basically stepping into their own lives, which is the whole point. And instead of you feeling proud and expansive, you feel a pull to worry more than necessary. To maybe even insert yourself where you're not needed. Maybe you find yourself questioning their choices and maybe even saying that out loud to them. Or even emotionally, you pull back to kind of protect yourself from the pain that you perceive is gonna happen when they don't need you as much, right? And all this starts to happen, not in very big ways, in really subtle small ways. And it's not because you don't love them, right? But their independence, their independence is stretching your identity. And a part of you isn't really sure who you are without them, right? If you're not needed in the same way anymore, who am I? And that begins to build discomfort in your body, and your mind starts to make up these stories, right? Um, I think also we can relate maybe to the scenario of like everything's going so well that you're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, right? How many of you have ever felt like that? Like, oh, this is going too good, so something bad has to happen to kind of keep me balanced here, right? To like bring me back to center somehow, right? Like life is so good, nothing's wrong. There's peace, there's ease, there's even joy. And then instead of relaxing with that, your mind starts to scan for problems. Like, well, it can't be this good. Something's gonna go wrong, or what am I missing, or this won't last, right? This won't last. How could it? Something always goes wrong. So I might as well just like start worrying about it now because it's sure to happen. And you start to brace yourself instead of actually leaning in and relaxing into receiving it, receiving this beautiful sense of peace and joy. And you know, it kind of basically will say to you, like, if happiness needs to be earned, that's what feels familiar. So you're going to work to earn happiness. Can't be easy. Can't be easy. Or, you know, it's gonna get taken away, which is such a scarcity mindset. It can't last forever, it's gonna go away. A lot of times this happens with money, you know, like it won't last forever, it's gonna go away. I need to grip tight to it. But this is this is what I'm starting to see as I'm reading this book. It's not that we don't want good things. I think all of us want good things, it's that our system isn't used to holding them. Like we don't have the capacity to hold all of this at once. So we unconsciously bring ourselves back to a level that feels really familiar, even if that familiar place is stress and overthinking or emotional tension, which certainly is not comfortable, but we perceive that as being more comfortable than actually stretching ourselves and allowing and expanding. Isn't that so interesting? And that's really what's gotten me thinking here a lot as I've started this book. So here's some kind of reflective questions that I pose out to you. And these are some of the things that I've been thinking about. And like I said when I first started this episode, you know, life right now for me feels good, feels easy, but I'll tell you that there's this little part of me that's like, that can't last forever. It's gonna go back, it's gonna get hard, it's going to, you know, there's gonna be tension again. Oh, the kids are coming home from college. Oh, that's gonna happen. So it's like my mind will start to make up all those scenarios. And so I'm I'm learning what that's about right now, and how can I, how can I work around that? Because this is mindset work and this is all also nervous system regulation work. They go together. Um, so here are some questions that I've been thinking about, and these might be helpful for you if any of those situations that I just mentioned, any of those examples relate, then maybe these are some questions that I pose to you as well to kind of sit with. So um think about like where in my life does it actually feel good, but I don't fully let it be good. You know, I pull myself back and I can think of a few for myself. Where do I create tension, doubt, or distance right when things are expanding? And that for me is a big one, and I've been sitting with that. What feels harder for me? Struggle or ease? I think that's an interesting one because I think a lot of us are addicted to the struggle. We're addicted to the struggle, and we get some sort of payoff for it. So it's like, what is that payoff that keeps us in the struggle? And what might be possible if I allowed myself to stay in the good, in the peace, in the ease, in the love. What might be possible if I stayed there just a little longer? And I think that that's a that's a good one to be thinking about at the at the end of those series of questions. And honestly, this is why I'm really excited for next month inside of Book Study Seminars, because we're diving deep into the big leap together, not just to read it, but to actually start working on catching ourselves in these moments and to start shifting them in real time, you know, to be together in communion and explore these types of things, and then to start shifting that, being aware of that, bringing it to the forefront and to notice, because it's always the first step is noticing and being aware. Um, and this isn't really about having all the answers, but it is about noticing, it's about becoming the woman who notices and then chooses differently. And I have an acronym for that that I share with my students called ACES, and it always starts with awareness, which then leads to a choice. And then the E stands for energy, and that has to do with how are you regulating the energy inside of your body, and how is that energy then being um distributed out, the frequency that you then vibe at. And then the last one is standard because when you do those three things, you're aware, you make a choice, you work on the energy frequency in your body to receive that choice and let your body know that it's safe, then that energy puts out a whole different vibe out into the world, and that becomes your standard. And we do a lot of work with aces inside of Soul School and inside of my book study. So, you know, I'm at the beginning of this book, which, you know, is is definitely eye-opening. Like I've already started to think about some of these things in my own life and where I have been holding back or preventing myself from really expanding my capacity to hold more, to hold more love, to hold more peace, to hold more ease. And I'm excited for where that work is gonna go in my own personal life. And I hope this episode brought to light maybe some of the things that are happening for you. And maybe you're sitting listening and you're going, yep, I can relate to a lot of those things myself. And if so, then I invite you to come in to the book study seminar that we're having in May and really start to peel back the layers of the onion and explore some of these upper limit situations in your own life and some of the tools and strategies that you can start implementing daily to allow yourself to move into your zone of genius and really allow what God has given you, you know, allow that to come forward and to allow yourself to live in this expansive state where you can have all of those things, all of those things in all areas of your life, not just in small little buckets. So I'm excited to see what unfolds inside of there, and I invite you to join us. And if it's not the right time for you, no worries. I hope you were able to benefit a little bit from this episode. And as always, share with a friend, leave a review, and until next time, bye bye.