Honoring Your Capacity

One of the most empowering and valuable lessons we can learn, is to honor the limits of our capacity. 
 
I first recognized the power of this in my master’s program, where we were taught to always look at a client's capacity to take in information and healing work. Looking at our capacity is a brilliant way of acknowledging that when we’ve hit our inner limit on our ability to integrate, our capacity for anything new, or even positive, can get blocked. 
 
For example, if I overdo it- give too much of my energy to anything external, spend too much learning something new, or from the go, go, go of non-stop activity without pause- I will feel crabbiness first. If I don't honor the crabbiness and say no to things I had scheduled or build in the time I need for recalibration, then exhaustion hits and I have no choice but to stop. 
 
I listened to a podcast recently and in it, Author Glennon Doyle said that she knows when she's hit her max, because suddenly she hates everybody. She feels like everyone is asking too much of her and she wants everyone to go away. That is hitting your capacity.
 
I have a client who goes into total apathy. Suddenly she doesn't care about anyone or anything, and that's her sign that she has been overdoing it and she needs to create some internal and quiet time for herself. 
 
We've been so trained to push harder, go faster, and ignore or deny our body's desire for rest. Even our nervous system can become used to frenetic, constant motion, making it hard to ground and feel settled and safe. Some of you may have heard me say in sessions that you've hit your capacity, and you tell me you feel fine and can handle more. Sure, you may think you can handle more, but meanwhile, if your energy field can’t integrate the work, it’ll start energetically pushing it back out.
 
It's totally understandable that many people don't recognize their limit. So much in life is designed to push you out of communication with your body and into following someone else's standard for how you spend your time. There's this unspoken pressure to compete, perform, and be “on” all the time. But that mindset is what leads to burnout.
 
When I'm consistent with building in downtime, hitting my capacity doesn't happen. But sometimes, things come up in life and we have a period of extreme busyness. In those moments, we also have to create pockets for resting and recalibrating.
 
Can you expand your capacity for good things and success? Absolutely, but that's a different discussion for the future. For now, let's focus on your capacity to take in and integrate information, connection, and energy from the world, without overwhelm or depletion.
 
And remember, our capacity changes over time – what we could do and handle in our 20s is very different in one's 50s. 
 
The key is to recognize and honor your limits before you hit the proverbial wall or get sick and have to stop. Honoring your capacity isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom.