Redefining Your Upper Limit Beliefs after Narcissistic Abuse: A Review of “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks offers us an intelligent and comprehensive perspective on how much abundance or success we can fully receive in our lives. He explores and explains the “quotas” that are programmed in our subconscious during our childhood. This quota determines the limit on blessings, opportunities, successes, basically anything that relates to our highest self. Hendricks uses the term, “upper limit problem” to define a negative emotional reaction that occurs when anything positive enters our lives.
The Upper Limit Problem not only prevents happiness, but it actually stops us from achieving our goals. It is the ultimate life roadblock (Amazon, 2009). I believe this is paramount to people who have experienced narcissistic abuse. Most people report on the offenses of their abuser, but for those raised in a narcissistic home, the damage is so insidious. That disordered person or people coded your nervous system to react to certain stimuli in a particular way. Typically in a way that allowed them to continue to control you, manipulate you, and extract narcissistic supply. They are the installers of our most sensitive buttons, so they know when to be push them.
If you are wondering why good things come to you but never last, it could be your upper limit problem. The Big Leap delivers a proven method for first identifying which […] fears prevents us from reaching our personal upper limit, and then breaking through that limitation to achieve what Hendricks refers to as our Zone of Genius (Amazon, 2009).
Hendricks explains that our upper limit problem stems from 4 hidden barriers:
1. Feeling Fundamentally Flawed
Sound familiar? Narcissistic parents can make their children believe these myths and abandon their children emotionally. I never received genuine encouragement or congratulations from my narc parent for any of my achievements. Their was someone, something more important, more urgent. Or the praise was given but behind my back to others in effort to make the narc look important or impressive. Talk about feeling fundamentally flawed.
2. Disloyalty and Abandonment
A narcissist is loyal to no one but themselves. Disloyalty and abandonment are the known routes to receive nourishment from their two food groups: power and control. Be aware that disloyalty and abandonment from a narcissistic parent would appear differently than from a friend, coworker, or intimate partner. Disloyalty through never taking your side, never believing you, and giving credit to everyone but you. Abandonment physically and/or emotionally.
3. Believing That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden
Even if a narcissist is successful, they may often portray themselves as martyrs or victims — always giving to others and doing acts of services. This may feel like love-bombing in some situations. The programming from this behavior is that with more success, you are burdened more. This is a half truth. There is more responsibility with success. But it will only feel like a burden if those responsibilities were modeled as hardship. Instead of opportunities to learn, grow, and expand.
4. The Crime of Outshining
This one really hurts because it appears as though your disordered parent is jealous of you. It ties in to feeling fundamentally flawed. If you mention an accomplishment or just something you are really excited about, the narc undermines it or patronizes you for shining. Remember, only they must shine. They are the ruler, and they must rule. So is it really a surprise that you now find ways to dwindle your own light?
What Happens and the Symptoms
These are all hidden barriers because narcissistic abuse is not always out in the open. The abuse often took place behind closed doors among immediate family members. This defines your constitution — the way you see yourself. You may not have even recognized the behavior as abusive for most of your life. However, it was revealed later on in life through a separate situation unrelated to your family. These are where some of the symptoms of your upper limit problem show up.
Say you want to write a book. You have several reputable contacts, written essays which will build upon the book, and a great deal of certainty that you want to write it. You’ve scheduled meetings, purchased coaching services, and started a budget plan. But somehow you start sabotaging each step in the process. Externally, nothing is happening to prohibit you from reaching these goals. It’s that you’ve met a quota. There’s a system deep in your subconscious which sends alerts to the nervous system in effort to bring you back to the state of comfort. Our nervous systems are not coded for success, happiness, abundance. It’s coded for comfort. So subconsciously, you do not believe you are an author, you do not think your writing is good enough for publishing, and you are afraid of the opinions of others.
To redefine your beliefs, you first need to identify the symptoms. It’s common to experience sudden pain, infections, rashes. Also, fatigue is an alert. Maybe you’re getting enough sleep at night, but you’re always so tired. Over eating and weight gain are protective mechanisms. Isolation is a sign of hitting a quota. You start cancelling or finding a reason not to show up. You’d rather be alone. When you find these symptoms flaring up right when your in pursuit of going to the next level, you know you have an upper limit problem.
Redefining your upper limit beliefs take time. It’s going to require you increase your level of self-awareness. You will also need to reflect on the trauma from the narcissistic abuse. This is a part of the recovery process. It’s going to require healthy boundaries, making peace with what is, and slowing down. Sometimes we move so fast that we miss the things that need our attention. Those patterns and limitations we are setting for ourselves. If it’s your norm, you will breeze right by it. Working on things slowly will allow you to stop and observe yourself. This is a part of Hendricks’ Zone of Genius. It’s where you will get to a point where you are high above your upper limits and can see everything from a birds eye view. Now that would be a full recovery from narcissistic abuse.

