The Detailed Version

I have spent most of my life fighting against my limitations. They made me angry, depressed, confused, desperate. Everything from not having a father to physical chronic conditions – I have had no shortage of blockers put in my path. With every new limitation, my hopes and dreams withered away until it just became “one day at a time.” I reacted without thinking, my stress was off the charts, and I listened to Jelly Roll’s “I am not ok” on repeat. Still, I tried to make my life better. I tried to establish roots, I read countless books on being your best self, I established workout routines. I stumbled my way into Duke’s Health & Wellbeing Coaching Certification program, which opened my eyes to a new way of life. I started to meditate, to truly listen, and I began practicing Jon Kabat-Zinn’s seven principles of mindfulness. After Duke, I passed the National Board for Health & Wellbeing Coaching exam – the most prestigious in the industry. 

Throughout all of this, I kept thinking, “just this one more thing and I will have it all together.” With a demanding career, volunteer work, home responsibilities, and being a coach, my limitations became the demon in the mirror I saw every morning. I wanted to be able to do all the things without suffering. I wanted to be my best self at home, at work, and in between. Instead I felt like a constant disappointment – like with every ball I caught, I dropped four. My nervous system was diagnosed as shot.

I wish I could pinpoint exactly when I stopped fighting my limitations and instead started to embrace them. Looking back, I think it was a lot of little things and a few big ones. Realizing that rest is productive was a hard thing to swallow, but it led me down the path to self compassion. Instead of criticizing myself and passing blame when my body lost its autonomy and I had to ask for help, I tried to accept it gracefully. Delegating opportunity instead of trying to control every outcome so I knew the quality of work being provided to clients was another little thing that turned into a big change. Setting boundaries is still something I struggle with as a people pleaser, but when I do it impacts everything. 

And then there were the big things. Losing the ability to move my entire body the first, second, and third time from dislocating a disk in my neck/back due to hypermobility. Getting to the point of stress where I wanted to throw everything I had built away. Losing my sister-in-law unexpectedly to colon cancer at 43. Losing my uncle to a heart attack right after losing my sister-in-law – one of the only people on my father’s side who made an effort to include me. 

They say sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in order to change. I think a better analogy for me is being constantly hit by those little hammers you play whack-a-mole with. Just a couple and you can still function. Add more than that and you start to hide your face instead of fight back. 

When I finally started to consider my limitations as elements to be worked with instead of fought against, life changed. I will never say it got easy, because it didn’t. But I will say that reframing the word “limited” to “unlimited with exceptions” made a huge difference in my mindset. I began to see opportunities where there hadn’t been previously and I started living in the moment instead of drowning in fear.

The truth is: I am limited – we all are in some way, shape, or form. I also believe we are all unlimited in our ability to make the best of what we have been given – to lean into the discomfort and become better people, to show ourselves self compassion when our body isn’t perfect, and to find true happiness. It takes work – it takes a lot of undoing of previous thought processes and environmental changes. For me, I had to uproot entirely and move to a place with a slower pace of life in order to get my nervous system back in check. But once the mindset changes, the true strength and power of who we are can shine through. It is no longer bogged down by “if only” or “just one more thing.” It becomes unlimited…with exceptions – because we’re all human and no one is perfect. We’re beautifully imperfect.