246. The High-Performing Woman's Upper Limit Pattern Nobody Talks About

What if binge eating isn’t the sabotage… but the aftermath?

In this episode of Embodied Writing Warrior, I’m unpacking a sneaky upper limit pattern that high-performing women rarely recognize for what it is. We’re talking about what happens when life gets better, you achieve the thing, and instead of letting yourself enjoy it, your system starts generating pressure.

Pressure to keep the body.
 Pressure to prove you deserve the breakthrough.
 Pressure to make the success “worth it.”
 Pressure to do something huge with what you’ve just created.

And when that pressure builds? It often spills into burnout, emotional eating, binge eating, restlessness, and self-sabotage.

This episode is inspired in part by The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, but we’re taking the conversation deeper into the reality of high-performing women, food struggles, and the hidden emotional mechanics behind why it can feel easier to achieve the thing than to peacefully sustain it.

Inside this episode, I cover:

•  What the upper limit problem actually is 
•  Why binge eating is often not the first sabotage, but the release valve 
•  How high-performing women create pressure after success 
•  The difference between achieving a breakthrough and feeling safe enough to keep it 
•  Why body transformations can become especially loaded 
•  The hidden link between self-sabotage and the “I’m not loved” wound 
•  A powerful journaling practice to help you spot this pattern in your own life 

If you’ve ever gotten the thing you wanted, only to feel restless, panicked, pressured, or pulled back into old habits right after, this episode is going to hit.

And this is just Part 1. Part 2 is coming next week.

Links Mentioned:

• Know Your Hungers (Free Gift)
• Learn More About Food Freedom Fantasy
• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Embodied Writing Warrior, a show for women who refuse white knuckle wellness and create food freedom built for real life, where your fire gets fame, not dead. Fall in blessed with your own momentum and enjoy pleasure-led creativity. Because healing was never meant to be a full-time job. I'm Kayla, writer and help coach God Row. Now let's make consistency feel like foreplay. Welcome back to another episode of the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast. This conversation is gonna change how you view self-sabotage forever. This is something I have not seen talked about, and we need to talk about it. And this is also something that I have had to learn through my own lived experience. And it's been so profoundly helpful for me that I wanted to pay it forward and share it with you. Today, we are talking about the upper limit pattern in high-performing women that nobody talks about. I'm gonna share how this pattern is often one of the sneaky things that can also lead to everything from binge eating, emotional eating, and burnout. You'll learn that many times binge eating isn't the initial form of self-sabotage. It's actually the aftermath. And this knowledge alone, and then what you do with it, is going to create so much more food freedom and consistency. We're gonna talk about why it's often easier to get the thing you desire than it is to happily, peacefully sustain and keep the thing, whether that is a body transformation, a financial glow-up, a career upgrade, or any other type of growth breakthrough. This conversation is so important, it's going to be in two parts. Next week I will drop the second part. All right, let's dive in. If this is your first time hearing about the upper limit theory, I first learned about this in the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And he shares that people have this inner thermostat for how good they allow themselves to feel. They have this baseline for their comfortable level of joy, peace, contentment. When something bad happens, they might dip below their usual baseline. But then they'll often rebound back to their baseline after some time has passed, they've navigated the emotions, the event is behind them. This is obviously good news for negative, challenging events, but unfortunately, this cuts both ways. So it's not such good news when you have a very positive, life-changing event happen. Because nobody wants a cap on how good they can feel. Not consciously, at least. So this thermostat is not so helpful when we want to deepen into more happiness, more abundance, more fulfillment, more expansion. And Gay Hendricks talks about some of the ways people will sabotage themselves when they get a big upgrade in their lives. Whether that is a new relationship, a health breakthrough, a new job, or a financial windfall. And he gives four key examples of sabotage: getting hurt, getting sick, worrying, or starting a fight with a friend or loved one. I first read this book years ago, maybe 2017, 2018, and I remember thinking, okay, but none of those apply to me. I might have done a little bit of worrying, and that resonated, but it also didn't feel like I worried enough to bring my thermostat back down. Meanwhile, I also knew that one of the things I did do was start to overindulge in food again after a big positive life change. This has happened many times. It happened when I got a huge career upgrade at my personal training job. It happened when I started dating my now husband, who is seriously the best man ever. It also happened when we got engaged and moved in together. Then it happened again when we sold our home and moved to this brand new town where I got to go all in on my dream business, had this beautiful house. So I am no stranger to the pattern of number one, something amazing happens that changes my external world for the better. Then I barely enjoy it before the compulsions to binge come back. And then I start eating everything in sight for a while. So even though this amazing thing has happened, I often have a hard time fully enjoying it because now I've returned to the one habit that has haunted me since childhood. And prior to these big positive life events, I had always been in these seasons where my eating was balanced, peaceful, and consistent. You can see here that this return to binge eating is gonna create a host of negative effects: low energy, frustration, broken self-trust, and then more moodiness and irritation from the blood sugar imbalance. All of these things are gonna bring me back down to my comfortable level of feeling good. Let's say that number is 50 as a random example. Then this epic thing happens that has the potential to shoot my level of sustained happiness up to a 63. But then the binge in emotional eating brings it right back to around 50. And as you're listening, I want you to start to think about your own upper limit patterns. Maybe, like me, you don't resonate as much with getting hurt, getting sick, or arguing with loved ones. Maybe you have a little bit of worry that creeps in, but at the same time, now you realize: wow, I also start to over-indulge and sabotage with food when life changes for the better. The reason this happens, especially for high-performing women, is twofold. The first aspect of this is more universal, and it's going to apply to most people who have this upper limit problem. This thermostat metaphor works because it assumes we have a comfortable range. Our systems, especially the unconscious parts, are always seeking comfort, homeostasis, familiarity. This is true, even if our conscious minds know that something unfamiliar would be better for us. Our deeper, unconscious parts don't have this same logical reasoning. They want to keep us safe and alive, and they know whatever is comfortable and familiar is survivable. Binge and emotional eating to keep us at a level 50 instead of raising ourselves up to the unfamiliar level of 63, that's comfortable. That's familiar and it's survivable. So, what we want to do here is train our systems through short intentional bursts of level 63 or higher positive emotions, that it is safe to feel this good. It is safe to be this joyful. This is a huge part of the work we do inside Food Freedom Fantasy in our fire module. It is so important. But for high-performing women, there's another layer of this entirely, which is why it can feel extra sticky to break through until you understand the mechanism at play. The upper limit pattern in high-performing women isn't getting sick, getting hurt, or fighting with anyone. It's actually creating an intense amount of pressure once they achieve the thing. So, what does this look like in real life? I'll show you a few examples for where this gets so problematic for high-performing women with a few examples. Let's start with a body transformation. It's common for people to achieve a weight loss or fitness milestone. Maybe they get in epic shape for a race or an event. Often they'll do it multiple times over their lifetime. They know how to do it. They know they can do it. But here's what will often happen in this arena. Say the person achieves the thing, they have the breakthrough, but instead of letting themselves enjoy it, pressure creeps in. This is where you get what Mark David from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating calls a false positive weight loss result. It might look like success on the outside, but the person is white knuckling just to hold on to it. So it's where someone reaches that milestone, achieves the goal weight, but holding it is another story altogether. Because now they feel pressure to keep it, especially because you cannot hide a body transformation one way or the other. Chances are people around you have commented on your progress. So you know they've noticed. So you also know if you're to lose what you've achieved, they'll notice that too, whether they comment it on that part or not. The false positive looks like you achieve the result, but you still live in fear of food, fear that your old eating habits will come back, fear you're gonna lose the progress you've made, fear that that is going to create public humiliation, and pressure builds to keep the thing. So instead of stopping, slowing down and being like, wow, I did that, I came so far, and then letting yourself enjoy what you've created. And that fear and pressure building in your system are what cause your body to cry out for relief. And eating is one of the fastest sources of relief, especially when you've had the habit of turning to food to soothe in the past. It's the pressure that often leads to binge eating or burnout. The binging itself is the aftermath of the upper limit pattern, not the upper limit pattern itself. And finally realizing this and turning your attention to the pressure building in your system instead of trying to solve binge eating, the downstream effect of that pressure, this is what is going to change your relationship with food and help you raise your thermostat over time. And I felt this one so profoundly right after my half marathon last June. After 13 years, 13 failed attempts, I broke the two-hour barrier. I had had the most consistency with food and habits I'd ever had. I had achieved the thing. And yes, I've talked about that on the podcast before. But here's the part I haven't shared before. You know what happened immediately afterwards? Like, literally on the walk back to my car after the race. I cried. I barely felt the joy and the satisfaction because that pressurized part of me was like, wow, I've cracked the code. I've figured this out. Now I have to go out into the world and help other people do this and put myself out there and get visible because this is too powerful not to share. Then I went to IHOP for a celebratory brunch with my husband. And I was so unhappy, he looked at me and said, I thought you'd be stoked. You've wanted this for so long. He was confused. I was also confused. Granted, I might have had a little bit of heat stroke because the race took place at like 8 a.m. in June and it was hot that day. But I know it was more than that. It was this immediate knee-jerk reaction of get the thing, now put pressure on yourself to do something with it. This is why telling a high-performing woman to just build more discipline or have more willpower is actually some of the worst advice you can give them when this is their upper limit pattern. They're already putting immense pressure on themselves to prove they can keep the thing, to prove they deserve the thing, by finding ways to pay it forwards instead of just letting themselves enjoy it. They're already applying discipline and willpower in the form of performing and proving and forcing. So more of that is just gasoline on a fire that's already putting them on the path to breakdown and collapse, often in the form of opening up the dominoes takeout menu or running to 7-Eleven at midnight for snacks. If applying excess pressure is your upper limit pattern, here's what to look out for. One, you're actually very good at achieving things. You can set a goal, put your head down, and make it happen. And often you even enjoy the pursuit. Then two, once you get the thing you worked so hard for, you never feel as happy as you expected to feel. You often feel restless, empty, or you immediately start seeking the next thing now that you've gotten this one. Number three, you feel this intense amount of pressure to keep the thing or make the thing worth it. For example, you have to be the best at that job from day one. You have to exceed expectations every time. You are not allowed to be a beginner. Or once you get the body transformation, now you have to immediately go do that other thing you've been putting off because you were struggling with food. No rest, no pause to just enjoy what you've just created. And number four, you feel uncomfortable when good things happen without you earning them. For example, when the good thing comes in the form of a windfall or an unexpected surprise. You might think to yourself, if you didn't sweat, bleed, or effort for it, do you even deserve it? And this upper limit pattern is a sneaky symptom of the I'm not loved wound. Because if part of you only feels worthy of good things, if you can prove you're worthy of keeping them, pressure will build. And eventually you'll often seek relief from that pressure through food. Also, when this block is alive in your system combined with this upper limit pattern, you never get to deeply enjoy the things that you've manifested that you've been dreaming about. And not getting to enjoy your manifestations and your achievements, that creates so much pain. It's one of the reasons I cried all the way to my car after that race. Your system will also often want relief from the pain of this wound, which is again where food will often come in to help you self-soothe. If you want to find out if this is your biggest block, this is where know your hungers comes in. It's two free assessments that help you uncover your biggest block around food and consistency. And whatever your biggest block is, you get a customized audio care package. Link will be in the episode description as always. Your embodied activation this week is to journal about times you've seen this pattern in your own life. So you'll start with A, the amazing thing that happened, B how you started to put pressure on yourself, and then C how that pressure might have led to binge eating, emotional eating, burnout, or some other form of sabotage. But the key here is noticing the ways you put pressure on yourself and noticing that the binge eating wasn't the actual sabotage. That was just your system's need to release the pressure. And if this episode has activated something in you, you will absolutely want to tune in to next week's solo episode where I dive even deeper into this topic. For now, I am wishing you an incredible rest of your week. Take care. Ready to stop outsourcing your inner knowing and crack your own code? Grab my free gift, Know Your Hungers. Discover the five hidden blocks behind your food struggles and get a customized audio care package based on your results. You're not broken, you're just misdiagnosed. Visit embodiedwriting warrior.comslash gift or click the link in the show notes.

unknown 22:00

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