A Spell for Surpassing Your Upper Limit
Do you ever get scared when things are too good?
When you get the perfect job, find yourself in a beautiful relationship, make more money, reach a new level of success . . . are you looking over your shoulder, wondering if something bad is about to happen?
Mmm hmmm. That’s a thing. It’s called Upper Limiting.
This spell will help you stop looking over your shoulder, start smelling the roses, and keep your eyes on the road.
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Make Magic:
When you’re feeling afraid that things are Too Good, take a breath.
Remind yourself: It is SAFE to get my hopes up.
Remind yourself: growth got you here,
and growth will take you wherever you’re going next.
Transcript: A Spell for Surpassing Your Upper Limit
Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Hello, beauty. I am coming to you from my dream life [laugh], but, really, I am in the mountains. I’m here for a few days. I’m here with my daughters and a couple of their friends. And while the teenagers sleep in in the morning, I do a little bit of coaching and a little bit of work. And then in the afternoon, we’re going to lakes and on hikes, and we are enjoying ourselves.
The house we’re staying in is lovely! It’s a gorgeous Airbnb, big windows in the quiet, quiet country. I am having such a lovely time. And actually, right now, I’m on my way to see a good friend who happens to also be here. The teenagers are at the house, theoretically cleaning up and cooking dinner, and I am on my way to see my friend and hang out with my friend at her little lake house.
So, I felt compelled to share a spell with you. Because when we start to access some of this dream life, when we move into the new house, get the new relationship, figure out the business move, or secure the job or promotion, when things start to get really good, oftentimes what happens—and this is just like so, so common—oftentimes what happens is some little scared part of ourselves will start to get a little bit wide-eyed and shifty, and we’ll start to think, “Shit! This isn’t good. This isn’t good. It’s getting too good. It’s getting too—something’s about to happen. Something’s—like another shoe is about to drop or there’s something I haven’t considered. Like, it can’t be this good.”
And there’s actually an amazing book about this phenomenon. It is by this writer, Gay Hendricks. He’s a coach, I guess. He does some relationship coaching with his wife too. But he wrote a book called The Big Leap, and I bet that you have heard of it or read it or read it multiple times. I certainly—I’ve both read it and taught it several times. And Gay Hendricks talks about this as being upper limiting. He says, you know, we have this kind of happiness thermostat, this fulfillment thermostat, and it’s set to, OK, this much happiness.
And when our happiness or fulfillment surpasses that, what we’re used to—what we're used to—and that might be income. That might be intimacy. That might be exposure. That might be enjoyment. There’s so many different things it could be. But when we come over that thermostat, it’s like it kicks on. The upper-limiting impulse kicks in, kicks on, and, all of a sudden now, we are worrying, or maybe we’re squabbling. We’re squabbling with our partner. We’re all of a sudden very worried, and we’re looking over our shoulder, and we’re starting to doubt ourselves.
Sometimes, Gay Hendricks writes, we get sick. We get ill. [laugh] And I think that as I’m talking about this, I’m betting that you know what I’m talking about. You know this upper limiting thing.
So, here’s the spell for evolving beyond your upper limit, or maybe it should be a spell for raising your upper limit. OK. Here’s a spell for raising your upper limit. It is safe for me to get my hopes up. It’s safe to get my hopes up.
I got this spell in part from Lindsay Mack, who is a tarot teacher. And her podcast is on hiatus now, but she said this in—oh, my gosh—February maybe or March of 2021 in one of her episodes. And I was listening in the car, and I practically had to pull over to the side of the road. I was so bowled over by that statement: it’s safe to get your hopes up.
So, I’m not saying it’s not scary, and I’m certainly not saying you won’t be disappointed. Please know, here on planet Earth, there’s always disappointment. Things are probably not going to go exactly the way you think. And, yet, at the same time, it is safe to get your hopes up because you can grow through whatever disappointment you will face. You will grow through it. You will survive. You will learn. You will evolve.
When we won’t get our hopes up, when we keep our hopes low, and we keep ourselves small, contained, reasonable, realistic, we don’t get to tap into some of what is boldest and most beautiful in the human spirit. It’s like we shut it down.
And I believe that, ultimately, that is what’s not safe because that is what gets us into abusive relationships. That is what gets us staying in jobs that are making us sick. That is what enables or allows for dangerous behaviors, addictions. I won’t get my hopes up, so I will drink a bottle of wine every night. I won’t get my hopes up, so I will be a shopaholic.
It is really scary to go for what you want, especially if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are disabled, if you are a person who isn’t heteronormative or heterosexual. OK. So, yeah, desire—all of these groups of people have been told, “Your desires are very dangerous.” And even if we intellectually disbelieve that, we’re still swimming in a culture that is repeating that all the time.
But when we say it is safe to get our hopes up, we can lift our hopes. We can center and follow our desires. We can figure it out. Will it be easy? No. It is not going to be easy. I’m speaking from experience. It will not be easy, but you will be free. You will be free to be yourself.
It is safe to get my hopes up. It is safe to want more, to want better. It is safe to try something new.
I’ll take a moment now to get my hopes up that you’re going to listen to this, and allow your hopes to rise too, because we do have so much collective work to do, because we do have this world to evolve and to make better, because we do have these beautiful lives.
And, listen, there are lots of problems. But I hope and believe we’re brilliant. We are ingenious. We are finding new ways of being—ways of being that are more human-honoring all the time. We are.
Look at Simone Biles. She just did it. Look at Naomi Osaka. She just did it. They said, “Hold on. This isn’t how it has to be. It can be different. It can be better. I can be an extraordinary athlete, and I don’t have to hurt myself to do that.” Everybody, that is so beautifully evolutionary, and I imagine it is an act of faith on their parts. “The sponsors won’t abandon us. The fans won’t abandon us.”
I hope that when I take a stand for myself, for my mental health, for my whole body wellness, my brain, my limbs, my muscles, when I take a stand for myself, I hope we can make room for that. And I don’t—I’m not saying that’s conscious on their parts. But I’m saying it’s a huge hopeful move.
It is—to kind of move back for a moment to the spell for vanquishing martyrdom—it is a huge fucking rejection of “I have to” and a complete embrace of “I choose to or I choose not to.”
OK. So, a spell for raising our upper limit, and I’m not going to say eliminating it because, listen, one step at a time. Would I love limitlessness? Probably, maybe, I don’t know. But I don’t find [laugh] it to be helpful to think about it in that way.
So, a spell for raising your upper limit, a spell for surpassing your upper limit, a spell for—maybe that’s the one. Maybe I like that one. Do you like how I’m figuring this out as I’m talking? Because what is it that I want to do with this upper limit? I don’t want to be violent with it. I don’t want to bust through it. I just want to move beyond it. I want to press it a little further. So, maybe “surpass.”
A spell for surpassing your upper limit: It is safe to get my hopes up, and I will grow through my disappointments. They will help me evolve. Will it be hard? Yes, it will be hard. Will it be harder than staying small? My friend, that is for you to decide. But, in my own experience, no, staying small, hoping less, being hopeless, that’s so much harder.
All right. I send you love. I send you a deep conviction it is safe to get our hopes up, and I’m excited to connect with you again soon. Bye for now.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.
Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.