The Limit

Do you have a catchphrase?  I’m not talking about a marketing tagline or jingle. This catchphrase is a word or phrase that you consciously, or unconsciously, say all the time. (In case you are wondering, “no” doesn't count.)  Most catchphrases these days are abbreviations – “oh em gee”, or “tots” or a popular one in our house, “ridic”.  (Which by the way, Daddy has been told that he is “too old” to use abbreviations.)  Old school catchphrases were “gag me”, “grody” or “totally” which itself was an abbreviation of “totally awesome”.  Repeated now, and even written down, they sound a little silly.  (I know, right?)

For me, a favorite phrase of my friends and I was “The Limit”.  The Limit applied to people – “She’s the Limit”.  It could apply to a situation “All this homework is The Limit”.  A place could also qualify as The Limit.  Of course the easiest thing to say was “That is The Limit” and you covered whatever person, place or thing you were referencing at the time.  The Limit could pretty much be applied to any situation, good or bad.  Inflection, circumstance and context were key.  Sometimes we would all agree on “The Limit”, but most times it was specific to the person.

As time goes on our limits become more defined, which is both a blessing and a curse.  It’s a blessing because when you start to recognize your limit you can plan for it and try to avoid it.  It is a curse in that your limit becomes fixed, it’s less flexible and you start to get set in your ways.  Whether you are prepared or not, when you reach your limit you know it.  The hard part is controlling what happens next.  It takes a lifetime of practice to hit your limit and control your reaction.  More likely we react in a way that’s very familiar, in a way that we've reacted for so long that it is a habit and has become automatic.  Whether it’s anger or sadness, worry or despair, very often its root is in a fear from long ago.  So long ago that you may have forgotten about it.  Nevertheless the habit was established and it lives on today.  It’s possible to break any habit, it just takes the desire to make the change.  As Deepak Chopra says, desire is what moves us forward.  Once you start moving forward, you’ll often need to forgive yourself and others.  You can’t give up at that point; you need to keep moving forward.

The act of starting is actually pretty easy.  You identify your limits.  Then you think of ways to avoid getting to that limit, for example getting more sleep to avoid being tired and losing patience, starting work on a project earlier so you are not rushing at the last minute or recognizing that you need to take time for yourself just so you can take that deep breath that is so hard to come by.  A big solution to avoid reaching your limit is learning to say “No”.  There are so many things that we say “yes” to out of obligation or because we feel that we have to.  If you can learn to say no you instantly take some of the pressure off reaching your limit for that day.

One word of caution, your limits are shifty little things.  Just when you think that you've got it down, they can mount a sneak attack on you.  Multiple little stresses can all add up and all of a sudden you are over a limit that you didn't even know existed.  And that my friends is “The Limit”.

Heart-FULLy yours, 

Kacey