What Are Your Limits?

00:01 Hi, this is Katie and thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast. And today I wanted to talk about reaching your limits.
00:12 Sorry if my throat is a little scratchy, we have a little bug going around our house right now, as per expected.
00:19 And this came to me because we are discussing in our household, especially with my son, about what your limits are in terms of how much you can do, how much Thank you so much.
00:36 You need to rest, how much. Um, what are those limits in your life? So, and I think it depends so much upon what time of day it is, what kind of day you're having.
00:48 Thanks for watching! How you're feeling, how your body is feeling. If you have a chronic illness or are neurodivergent, you know, or at least you suspect that that is dynamic and that it changes.
01:04 Changes. And that some days the overwhelm is way too overwhelming. Or there are some days that you can sit down and think, oh, well, I can handle a little bit more.
01:20 My limit is higher. Decision. The first place to decision. Today to know when that cutoff is between burning out doing way too much, going, whoo, you know, I need a long break after this.
01:33 And I think we, we often do overextenders. Those, I think again, if you have a chronic illness and are neurodivergent, you see that the world has expectations of people who don't have those things, those conditions, and you.
01:53 You try to push a little harder to fit in, to go, oh, well, if they're doing it, then I can do that too, right?
02:03 And that's hard. That's really hard. And it took a long time for me to realize eyes. Okay, my limits are very different from a lot of other people.
02:14 And I'm not going to say normal because there is no normal. There can be some typical or trends of groups of people that may be able to Thank you.
02:25 Have more physical energy, have more mental energy, have more spiritual or like any kind of energy within your body. Can like keep going.
02:40 They can like go, well, this is Thank you for watching. Not my limit. I can keep going. I can see this through to the end of the day and and know that they're gonna need a break too.
02:49 Like no one can go forever. Everyone needs to sleep. And even if you have a tough time sleeping, you still need to sleep your everyone's body.
02:58 Needs to sleep. All living beings need to rest in some way. The trees need to rest. The plants, the animals, everything needs rest.
03:12 But knowing you how, you know, comfortable, can you push yourself? How far can you push yourself until like everything pushes way back and you feel like, wait, I did too much.
03:27 Again, it's taken me many Thanks for watching! I'm in my 40s to go, okay, no, these are my comfortable limits.
03:37 I certainly wasn't quite aware of them in my twenties and even thirties. I think thirties, I was just like, okay, you know, becoming a new mom and And, go.
03:46 Going, wait, my limits have totally changed because my body has changed and my mental capacity and all the things that I'm worried about and coordinating.
03:58 That was the wake up call for me. I'm not saying you have to have kids at all. Cause I don't believe that's for everyone.
04:06 To still have times in your life where your body is shifting and you can't do what you did when you were young when you were I think we kind of think back to, oh well, I used to be able to do this.
04:25 As a teenager, I would run around and do a whole bunch of things. I had so much energy in my 20s.
04:31 I was able to stay up late and, you know, you know, I honestly during my 20s and I was doing a lot of coding.
04:39 I was doing a lot of the web design and I would stay up late and I could recover the next day.
04:45 You know, sleeping in, of course, but knowing that then then we'll see you in the next video. When my son came along, I was like, I cannot do that anymore.
04:55 Not only is my schedule changed, like I can't really sleep in with having a newborn or a toddler. But also going my body.
05:07 Can't recover from those like all night coding sessions. Like that's that's a limit and it takes brain power and your heart, you know, your heart and mind to come to the this resolution that that just isn't you anymore.
05:27 Like I was like, that's not me. That's not something that I can do and there can be some mourning in that.
05:37 But I think the more and more we get older older. We realize that everyone's getting older around us as well and they're doing things or they're not doing as many things as they used to.
05:50 So we're in this together, you know, there's you know, the, the saying of it's not if you will beginning, you know, whether or not they're chronic conditions or health conditions, it's kind of when, right?
06:07 As we all age, we are all going to have more and more Thanks for watching! Limits of what we can or cannot do and having a supportive community, having supportive friends or other services around us is going to be necessary as we grow old.
06:25 So, but in the here and now, like, it's important to kind of recognize before we burn out. And I know this is the hard part, right?
06:37 You hear from so many people like, oh, just bring it in, just pull it back. First of all, there are a lot of people who have requirements of them that they have to do things.
06:50 And in a society who's in like, how much can we produce? How much can we get done? Kind of a hustle culture?
06:59 Like go go go are managers and people who are above us at jobs at work. We'll say no, we have to get this done and you need to push through.
07:13 And those can be times when your kids are sick. Thanks for watching! Or you're sick or you have a lot going on in your life where you're having you know, family disagreements or like all these other things on the side that make it really hard to concentrate.
07:32 And it's, it's going, okay, do I have any control over this situation? Is there anything that I can communicate to say I need to work like two thirds of a day today?
07:46 I need to take a personal, All right. Our two I need to take personal day. Is there something in my schedule that I can say no to?
07:56 Is there something fun to add to my schedule to maybe look forward to? So I'm talking about burnout but I'm also talking about mental burnout as in if you're working way too hard.
08:08 Now I work for myself but I can definitely overwork myself. I can definitely go okay you're not gonna have much fun until you get this done.
08:19 But then I also find . . Like I need a little motivation to keep going and I have like pre-celebration so I do.
08:30 So I will do things to kind of celebrate going into a hard time so that as I'm going through those Thanks for watching!
08:37 Like, really concentrated work sessions or producing things. I mainly produce digital things. That I have these reminders around me to keep going.
08:52 That I had some happy times that I know I will have more happy times. I'm not as great celebrating after.
09:01 I'll kinda just go to the next thing. But that's why I do pre-celebrations. But I think Thank you for watching!
09:09 When we have support around us whether it's like, you know, mug that you're drinking out of because it reminds you of a day that you spent together with friends or family, whether it's a notebook or something those can help.
09:27 But what I'm also talking about with knowing your limits is setting boundaries. And boundaries are meant to keep you safe.
09:36 Boundaries are meant to have a separation between between you. You and other people. So this is where you end and this is where the other people begin and other people could be the job.
09:49 It could be the workplace. It could be friendship. It could be a family member and that your Thanks for watching.
09:57 Trying to keep this boundary of saying, okay, I understand my family member needs a lot for me right now, but I need to keep myself safe and to focus on my immediate health needs or my work or something that's just really important right now.
10:19 Just having that boundary and saying, okay, this is what's keeping me safe. This is what's keeping me going and I can adjust that at a later point.
10:29 Thanks for watching! So it can be temporary, right? It can be a day, a week, a season. What? And then looking inside your heart, looking inside your mind, looking and looking at your body.
10:45 Bye! I'm trying to think of the right word here. What you're noticing is your body extra achy right now. Is it slowing down?
11:00 Is it, you know, sometimes we can get kind of like really going with adrenaline so much that we don't realize that our bodies taking on too much.
11:14 Usually for me when that happens it's because anxiety is driving me. You know, just go go go. And I need to sit slow down, stop, sit, talk to my therapist, eternal, and go what the heck's going on?
11:29 What is going on with my anxiety? That my body is that I am pushing my body enough that I might hit my limit and go over.
11:40 Now all these limits and boundaries are fuzzy, right? There's always going to be conditional, like, okay, well, but it's a Thursday and Thursday or harder or easier.
11:52 It's the first day of my period and I have, like, I wasn't expecting that and I'm just way more tired than I thought.
12:04 It's, you know, I'm having a flare up for my chronic condition. Or hey, I got some really good sleep last night.
12:13 I have a lot more energy than I expected. So all these fluctuations sometimes aren't even known until, like, the morning of.
12:23 But for me, I try to put some of these details. I journal about them or I put some of these details in a health planner I have to see what those trends are.
12:35 Journaling, especially of going, oh, well, that, that's the Amen. Until part of, like, going, well, I worked way too hard on this one thing.
12:44 I need to pull back. I know I need to get this done, but maybe I'll take two days instead of one day on it.
12:53 Thanks for watching! Yeah, splitting things into chunks of like, okay, this is this really big project, but if I just did two hours a day instead of eight hours one day, and I know that's hard for those ADHD I'm in that boat too.
13:11 I I'm like, well, I could just get it all done in one day, right? And that's hard. Putting in mini milestones can really help from like having that okay, I over exerted myself that day.
13:25 I went way over my limit. It. But looking at it is like, okay, I did two hours of work today and that's as in on that project.
13:36 So that I can have other projects, you know, running alongside those. But still you'll know. Knowing like, okay, I need to pull back from this.
13:46 Now, if you are having chronic conditions that affect the workplace, we, you know, you need to talk to your manager in HR about what ADA accommodations that you can have because because, there are protections even though they're kind of weak, right now I have to say like there are people who
14:07 go to their higher ups and they are like, look, I need this and they come back and say no, we can't provide that.
14:14 With which can possibly be illegal look into that, in your state, because every state differs, but there are 88 protections for the nation here in the US, so.
14:31 I feel like I would approach an employer every time and ask, hey, I need, you know, either an office that can accommodate maybe the lights are too bright, maybe Thanks for watching!
14:48 The workload needs to be at like 80% instead of 100% because ultimately they are going to get better work from you in the long run because you'll be able to more maintain a steadiness and instead of burnout and then being sick and then burnout and then going forward again and having this like, 
15:12 it's almost like a pendulum swing, right? Swinging it too far way over your limit and then backtracking away. Under that so then you end up feeling guilty.
15:23 I think for a lot of us we will swing that pendulum forward pushing as hard as we can and on that swing back because we are taking extended amount of time.
15:36 Or more time than we think is necessary. Then that's where the guilt can sit. That's where it can kind of creep in and go oh but I'm, I'm not doing enough is when I went over my limit so I feel bad.
15:50 I feel bad for resting. Thanks for watching! I feel bad for not being able to keep up. I feel bad for all these things.
15:58 Like there's gonna be shame. There can be blame. There can be just feeling guilty. There's a lot of feelings there and I definitely urge Thank you for watching!
16:08 People to examine that. Whether with a therapist, with journaling or something. Usually it comes from childhood as they all say.
16:19 Like all of these ideals were kind of introduced to us in childhood. So it can be something where someone else's words are kind of stuck in your head of like what it means to be valuable.
16:34 What it means to be a value in the society. You And that takes some unlearning and going wait a minute.
16:44 That is somebody else's words that maybe they heard from someone else. That's not me though. I'm going to do things my way.
16:53 If possible. I know there are are a lot of limitations in what you can push back with. There are certain situations where you feel very stuck and you feel like you don't have much control over your life and you have to go through the motions.
17:13 And I urge in those situations to try to get as much of support as possible, whether it's friends, family, community, because we shouldn't be going through this alone and we should be able to should.
17:28 We, You would love to be able to say like, oh, just say no to things, but I know that's not realistic.
17:38 So I wanted to give you those kind of ideas on like boundaries and limits. It's, And maybe just taking a pause this next week and kind of reflecting upon what your limits are, in what situation, with what people, with what kind of work, with what kind of, Thank you.
18:01 Time of year or season or things that you're going through. So I hope that helps. And I just want to thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast.