Expanding Your Capacity for Goodness

“The Good came among you, pursuing (the good) which belongs to every nature.”

Mary 3:5

I’ve noticed a theme with clients coming into 1-1 coaching and that’s their desire to dive deep into their psyche and uncover blocks or limiting beliefs they think are stopping them from achieving their goals. And they might be right. This eagerness is praise worthy as clearing outdated, unconscious programming is part of my coaching philosophy.

I call this focus on removing obstacles, Defense. And defense is helpful, it’s efficient, and allows us to ultimately move the chains (i.e., make forward progress). I just think we’re playing too much defense, excessively targeting what we need to fix. We also have to go on Offense and score some points, expand our capacity for goodness, not because we’re coming up against resistance, but because Good is our true nature.

In Mary Magdalene’s gospel, she refers to god as “The Good”. It’s my belief that when we expand our capacity for goodness, when we open ourselves up to more joy, more love, more peace, and more prosperity, we’re aligned with who we really are, our soul, and also plugged into The Good. And when we’re plugged into The Good, we’re in stride with life. It doesn’t mean there are no challenges, but life is a lot less challeng-ing. Who wouldn’t want more of that? Well, humans. Sometimes we can stop ourselves from experiencing more good. Here’s what I mean.

Gay Hendricks, founder of The Hendricks Institute, encountered this phenomenon while working as a research psychologist at Stanford University and he calls it the “upper limit problem”. What exactly is that? It’s when life gets too good. It’s when we reach our human, conditioned capacity for goodness and we (unconsciously) run interference.

If our brain’s #1 job is to keep us safe, and it is, then one of the ways it does that is by creating zones of comfort based on our experiences. We don’t consciously do this; our unconscious mind does this automatically. Didn’t grow up with enough money to pay the bills? Not having enough money to pay the bills is what’s comfortable, normal, or “safe”. And everything outside of that, to our unconscious mind, is potentially “dangerous”, meaning, having an overflow of money can be seen as unsafe. But this doesn’t make sense! That’s your conscious mind thinking. Our unconscious mind isn’t logical; it’s wired to keep us alive, and it does that by keeping us comfortable.

So when we experience new levels of joy, love, peace, or prosperity, our unconscious mind will mitigate that “danger” by causing us to behave in a way that takes us from that upper limit and back to what’s comfortable, even if that comfort is misery. It might be why Virginia Satir, American author and psychotherapist is quoted as saying, “People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”

“People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”

Virginia Satir, American author and psychotherapist

Again, this isn’t conscious behavior, it’s unconscious. So what are we to do?

First, practice becoming aware of when you’re upper-limiting. Hendricks says there’s many ways we upper-limit, but one of the most common is by worrying, especially when things are going well. This is what it sounds like: At the close of a session a client was telling me how proud she was for a recent win and in seconds shifted to a concern at work. I asked, “Did you just upper-limit yourself?” She gasped, “Yes!”. So when you find yourself worrying, that can be a cue to ask yourself if you’re upper-limiting.

Second, GET EXCITED!! You just spotted your threshold for goodness! Here’s your opportunity to turn the dial up on how much goodness you can tolerate.

Third, expand through the upper limit. Back to my client: Because we were together, I coached her through her upper limit by asking her tell me three things or people she was grateful for and why. We increased her capacity for positivity in that moment.

We could have also very easily went back to what she had been talking about prior; the pride she had felt and expanded that feeling.

And here’s another option: Since our brain’s #1 job is to keep us safe, I believe one of the best things you can do to interrupt an upper limit is to say, “It’s safe…”. “It’s safe for me to feel proud, it’s safe for me to celebrate this win, it’s safe for me to feel good” and really take in those associated feelings.

But wait, this is defense! What does increasing our capacity for goodness look like going on offense?

What Hendricks recommends is utilizing the mantra, either in formal meditation or as you go about your day, “I expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same.”

“I expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same.”

Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap

However, there’s not just one way to do this. My suggestion is to always choose what you enjoy so you’re more likely to engage in a consistent practice. Ideas include:

• Visualizing formally OR physically by embodying your future self OR scripting (my preference)
• Reading, writing or listening to affirmations
• Guided meditations, such as loving kindness
• A gratitude practice
• It could even be expanding your capacity for success by pushing your physical limits with exercise or sport.

Two of my favorite ways to increase my capacity for love are, wearing a red string around my wrist to remind me to be brave to the divine love and light within me at all times and in all places, and pulling a card from The Mary Magdalene Oracle each morning which always lights my heart on fire.

I’d love to know how you proactively push past your upper limits to new levels of health, wealth, and love. If you don’t currently have a practice, share some ideas you might have to begin doing so. Reaching your next level requires this of you.

Your Metaphysical Performance Coach,
Dani Medrano