How to Tolerate Success

How to Tolerate Success

I am always curious when I draw the same Creative Questions card over and over. “Why is it so easy?” has been coming up a lot lately, not only for us, but for me when I draw my own card. I wonder why that could be?

Why would it be easy? How could it be easy? What makes it all so easy?

We humans like a challenge. It’s how we got to the moon back in the olden days. So maybe it’s that we don’t have enough challenges and so we make ‘em for ourselves. Or maybe we think it has to be difficult to count. Or maybe we just don’t know any better.

Have you ever heard someone say, “that was just too easy.” Some of us get the idea that if “it” is easy, something else has to be hard in order for things to balance out, like things are being weighed out on a scale. The question becomes this: Too easy relative to what and according to whom?

Success tolerance. This is a very interesting concept, one you might find some use in thinking about. Simply put, we each have an idea of how good things can be for us.If we get to that point, we need to wreck it.  It is pretty much an unconscious thought, we are rarely aware of that bit of discomfort. But when we hit it, when things get “too good,” we often end up sabotaging our own self. Think of Martha Stewart’s fall from grace at her very pinnacle of success.

This whole thing is tricky because it is unconscious behavior. Because it is unconscious, we can’t control it, we can’t stop it before the fact. We can, however, notice it when we can, and take responsibility for it when we do catch it. This one of the differences between being a grownup and being a victim, the taking of responsibility for ourselves.

We may counter success at work with strife at home, or financial success with physical stress symptoms. We might counter relationship success with weight gain. Something to set the balance right according to our own secret standard.

So what do we do? Can we increase our success tolerance? Or is it fixed, like a chain that keeps us from advancing beyond a certain point?

Well, there ain’t no chain, my dear, just our own thoughts.

Like so many other things, being aware of it is the first step. When we can recognize our own sabotaging tendencies, and look for where we feel the need to strike balances, we can often slow down, relax, breathe, and move ahead with deliberation and gentleness, going slowly inside.

We can address it within ourselves, “Why am I safe to progress? What makes me feel comfortable with my success? Why do I enjoy my success?”

When we do sabotage ourselves, in whatever way our own self deems appropriate, we can acknowledge it, and apologize to ourselves for it. It may sound goofy, but the same way apologizing to someone else can make that relationship better, apologizing to ourselves can help us heal our relationship within.

How have I changed from wondering what the heck happened, to nurturing our tolerance for success?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 07012013