Today I was on the phone with a guy who is a leader in his profession. He’s creating a movement. He’s changing peoples’ lives around the world. He’s becoming more visible because he helps celebrities and the people that help lots of other people.
He really cares about the people he teaches. He’s got a great girlfriend. A great life. He’s worked really hard to get to this place.
And he’s freaking out.
He described to me how he thought he must be crazy because from time to time he would do things to push his good fortune away. He would do things to seemingly sabotage his success.
And I told him about how I, too, have experienced these places where things are going really great — because I’ve worked really hard to make them happen — and yet I find myself doing stupid things to make it rain on the parade.
Gay Hendricks wrote a book called The Big Leap and he talked about The Upper Limit Problem (check out my interview with him about this on The New Man Life).
He says we’ve all got a thermostat for how much joy and good fortune we can accept into our lives. Once we hit that limit, we unconsciously start to go off the rails so we can get back into our comfort zone — a comfort zone where there are a certain amount of problems or drama.
In a culture focused on 24 hour “news” channels, fear, and the next apocalypse (zombie or alien?), it’s seemingly bad form to appreciate and receive what’s going well in our lives. There’s always the next thing to feel bad about!
We work hard to make positive progress and yet when it comes time to receive, an electrified wall wraps itself around our hearts with a neon sign reading — NO ENTRY.
We create another condition to be met, another summit to be climbed, another reason why we don’t deserve the good fortune that is showing up right now.
But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
Whether you believe you’re worthy of it or not — how would you live differently today if it was okay to receive the good fortune in your life?
Tripp
