This Is Living

How to keep the spark alive.

Now that I’m back from Europe and my jet lag is sorting itself out, my latest curiosity is around this question:

How do I keep this feeling of aliveness going?

Last night, lying in bed, I noticed a tightening in my hips. I’ve done enough somatic work to recognize the pattern of my body doing what it does best- protecting me. That tension isn’t random. It’s my hips trying to hold me back from moving forward because they love me. But this time, with fresh eyes after such an expansive trip, I could see the old story so clearly:

“It’s not safe to feel this good. If you’re too alive, you’ll be disappointed. There won’t be a place for it to land. It won’t be mirrored or expanded. You’ll have to shrink. And you’ll end up alone.”

I don’t consciously believe that anymore but it still lives in my body. It shows up in subtle ways, like tension in my hips or the creeping thought that I need to get back to “proving” in order to be worthy of my own aliveness. That it’s too much to feel good without a reason, permission or a task to fulfill.

It makes me think of the Marianne Williamson quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”

So yes, our bodies try to protect our light. But this time I’m seeing it for what it is, an upper limit problem.

What’s An Upper Limit Problem?

It’s a term Gay Hendricks uses in the The Big Leap to describe the unconscious ceiling we place on how good we’re willing to let life get—how much love, success, creativity, joy, or ease we allow ourselves to receive before we sabotage it.

It’s not a breakdown—it’s a threshold. So once we notice it the question becomes, how do we breakthrough it?

For me, the threshold hit the moment I came home from Europe. I’d spent twelve days in motion: new sights, currencies, rhythms, foods, late sunsets and loud crowds. My sensitive system got overwhelmed at times, but I stayed present, named what I was feeling, and took mini breaks when I needed to.

I didn’t have time to overthink. I just lived. I trusted the ever-present stream of well-being energy that’s available to all of us all of the time.

That level of presence was a kind of freedom I rarely let myself feel. So when I returned home, the contrast hit me like a wall:

“Now you better earn it.”
“Get back to work.”
“You can’t feel that good all the time.”

But then I realized something: this tension I felt wasn’t the problem—it was my joy trying to stretch me.

Aliveness Needs Protection, Too

One of my biggest realizations? The same way I nurtured myself through sensory overload on my trip, I now need to nurture my joy in daily life.

When my aliveness feels too loud or too much, and no one is there to mirror it—I can learn to hold the warm charge. I can funnel that energy into creativity. Into connection. Into pleasure. Into deep rest.

Here’s how I’m protecting my spark now that I’m home:

1. Listening to playlists that raise my vibration. I love light electronic music that feel introspective, sensual and slightly euphoric with a steady beat.

2. Tacking affirmations on my desk to anchor my aliveness:

   • I am safe in the pace of my natural aliveness.

   • I am magnetic when I let myself be lit up.

   • I am worthy of receiving just by being me.

3. Channeling my creative energy into weekly Substack posts like this, sharing thoughts more spontaneously on IG stories, and amping up enrollment around my two group experiences: Manifest Your Future and Magnetize Your Business.

4. Planning one adventurous trip per quarter- and definitely one international a year- to keep wonder alive in both my mind and my body.

Because the truth is:

Aliveness doesn’t need to be earned. It needs to be met, respected, engaged with, and channeled into living.

Here’s to letting travel help us bust through our upper limits—and to giving ourselves the permission to keep living that way, even when we arrive home.