Have you ever noticed what we do right after something goes well?
Not the big moment. The ten minutes after the big moment.
Somebody tells us we did a great job, and before they’ve finished the sentence we’re already explaining why it was nothing. The good news comes in, and within the hour we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. The week is finally calm, and we go looking for something to be upset about.
I sometimes catch myself doing a version of one of these. Nothing dramatic. No quitting, no blowing anything up. Just little taps on the brakes. Enough to bring things back down to a temperature I recognized.
Most of us know someone who did the big version. They finally got the money, the break, the partner, the opportunity, and found a way to hand it back inside a couple of years. We shake our heads, wishing they could see what we’re seeing. I’ve shaken mine, and then, if I’m honest, sometimes catch myself doing a pocket-size version of the same thing.
I don’t think we’re broken. I think we each have a setting.
Thermometer or thermostat?
Here’s the picture that finally made it click for me.
A thermometer reads the room. It tells you it’s seventy-four degrees and that’s the end of its job.
A thermostat decides the room. Set it to sixty-eight and it will fight for sixty-eight all day. Room gets too warm, it kicks on the cold. Room gets too cool, it kicks on the heat. It’s not being difficult. It’s doing exactly what it was set to do.
Most of us walk around thinking we’re thermometers. Life gets good, we feel good. Life gets hard, we feel bad. We just read the room.
I’ve come to believe we’re thermostats. We each have a setting for how much good we’re allowed to keep. When life runs hotter than the setting, something in us reaches for the dial.
A psychologist named Gay Hendricks put a name on this years ago. He calls it “the upper limit problem,{ and his book The Big Leap is where I first saw the whole pattern written out plainly, which is a strange afternoon when a few of the lines look familiar. It isn’t a diagnosis, and I don’t think any of us needs another label. But a useful phrase gives us somewhere to begin.
Five ways we turn down the heat
These are the most common taps. I’ve noticed a few of them in myself from time to time, and maybe one or two will sound familiar to you, too.
- Worrying early. The good news lands and within an hour we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels like being realistic. Often it’s just the dial.
- Handing back the compliment. “Oh, it was nothing.” “The team did all the work.” “I got lucky.” I sometimes catch myself talking people out of a compliment with the skill of a trial lawyer.
- Picking a small fight. The week was peaceful. The relationship was going great. So we found something about the dishwasher to be upset about.
- Getting tired right after the win. The project we were pushing through on ships Friday and then we come down with a cold on Sunday. Sometimes a cold is just a cold. But some of us can look back and see a pattern of running on empty the exact week we were finally allowed to feel good.
- Quietly holding back. Not going for the bigger client. Undercharging the minute the business got easy. Keeping the good news to ourselves so nobody feels left behind. This one is the sneakiest because it looks like kindness.
None of those are character flaws, they’re just indications that the thermostat is doing its job.
More doesn’t fix it
A lot of us believe the fix is more. More money and we’d finally relax. More clients and we’d finally feel established. More proof and we’d finally believe it.
The trouble with a thermostat is that more heat doesn’t change the setting. It just makes the thermostat work harder to bring the room back down.
I’ve watched people get everything they said they wanted and quietly adjust around it, or even worse find a way to blow it all up. Not because they’re ungrateful. Because the setting was still where it was, and the room got too warm, and the dial did what dials do.
I sometimes catch myself doing it too. Something goes well, and instead of enjoying it, I notice I’m braced for “the other shoe to drop.” It usually doesn’t come. Many of us have just gotten so used to bracing for the worse that enjoying can feel unsafe.
If more worked, the hardest working people we know would be the most at peace. A quick look around suggests that isn’t how it goes.
So the question stops being, how do I get more? It starts being, how do I let myself keep what’s already here?
Where the setting came from
I don’t think any of us chose our “inner thermostat setting” on purpose.
Nobody sits down at twenty-two and decides, I’ll allow a medium amount of happiness and a modest income, and anything past that I’ll quietly sabotage. It isn’t a decision. It’s more like a hand-me-down.
For a lot of us it was set early. We learned somewhere along the way that too much good might make us a burden, or leave somebody behind, or outshine someone we love. We learned that staying at a familiar temperature kept the peace.
So when the money comes in, or the business takes off, or the relationship is just, honestly, good, some old part of us gets nervous. Who do I become if this keeps going? Who do I leave behind?
When we start to notice it, we can now understand those feelings are loyalty, pointed in a direction that doesn’t serve anybody. Our thriving doesn’t mean we abandon the people we love. If anything, it shows them what is truly possible in their own lives.
Turning up the dial
The good news about a thermostat is that it has a dial. Here are three small places I’d start.
- Name it when it happens. The next time the worry shows up early, or the compliment is halfway back out of your mouth, just say, “Ah. That’s the thermostat.” No scolding. We’re not in trouble. We’re noticing. Noticing is most of the work.
- Breathe into the good. There’s an old line in therapy circles that fear is excitement without the breath. Fear and excitement feel almost identical in the body: tight chest, fast heart. So when the good thing lands and the chest tightens, add the breath. Drop the shoulders. Let the warm feeling sit for fifteen seconds before the next thought. That’s it. Fifteen seconds.
- Let in ten percent more. Not a new life. Ten percent. Keep the next compliment all the way to the end. Leave the good week alone instead of picking a fight over how the dishwasher got loaded. Say “I’m having a really good month” out loud to one person and don’t follow it with “but.”
Open hands, both ways
Allowing isn’t only letting go of control. It’s letting the good thing stay when it shows up, even when it runs warmer than we’re used to. Especially then.
The Power breathing you is greater than any circumstance, situation, or condition. I believe that. And I’m learning it is not the least bit afraid of my good week.
So, let’s be honest and ask ourselves, “What are we quietly turning down right now?”
If anything in this is resonating with you, I’d love to talk. I offer a free discovery session where we can look at where you are, what you actually want, and where the dial might be set a little low. No pressure. No pitch. Just an honest conversation, with me on your side of the table.
With love,
Rosemary Gibson
