Resist Your Limits (Or Maybe Don't)

I go to the gym primarily for my mental health. Keeping the endorphins flowing helps to ward off symptoms of anxiety and keeps my mood up. The gym is a great place for me as a person with a connective tissue disorder because it has so many options. If my chronic pain is flaring up in one part of my body, I can just focus on a different muscle group and still get a good workout in. And although I love being outside, it's also nice to have a place that I can go to excercise no matter what the weather. One day I was enjoying my gym routine when something caught my eye.

A poster was hanging in the corner of the gym near the cardio machines. It shouted out in a large bold font, a single phrase: “Resist Your Limits.” Now, I can understand what they were going for with this slogan. I assume it was intended to motivate would-be fitness enthusiasts to push themselves in their workouts. However, something about the phrase haunted me a little. Resist Your Limits. Isn’t that the siren song of American culture, where working overtime is a badge of honor and weekends are for the weak? Hasn’t it been that very culture that has driven me to burnout over and over again as I overcommit to things in the interest of earning money, proving my worth, and avoiding FOMO (fear of missing out)? Resisting my limits has gotten me in a lot of trouble with my mental health, my physical health and my overall wellbeing.

One of my main mental health challenges is anxiety and I know from experience that respecting my limits helps me to keep it in check, while resisting my limits is a recipe for feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Human beings weren’t made to process so much information at once from all over the world and for those of us who wax empathetic and emotional, the constant bombardment of cell phones messages and social media alerts can leave our minds and hearts spinning for days. I have had to learn to be very careful about how much time I spend on social media or attached to my phone because if I push my limits in this area, I can become extremely anxious, experiencing symptoms like racing thoughts, rapid heart beat, and stomach pains.

I also struggle with resepecting my physical limits. Living with a chronic pain condition, there are days that I feel pretty good and days that I don't. On the days when I’m not experiencing much pain, it is very tempting for me to push myself to be more active than usual. I want to walk farther or dance or make things with my hands. I want to do whatever I want for a day and feel on top of the world. However, whenever I push my physical limits without a slow plan of activity increase, I injure myself ten times out of ten. Yet still, I keep doing it over and over again. My fiancé tells me this is the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result).

Overall, I think one of the biggest things God is teaching me right now is to respect my limits rather than resist them. When I disrespect my limits for sleep and wake time, I find myself hitting a wall where I crash for days at a time. When I disprect the limits of my energy, I sign up for too many part time jobs, volunteer positions, and commitments and am burned out. When I disrespect the sensitivity of my body to caffeine, I can’t fall asleep at night. Limits are not always a bad thing. In fact, limits were given to us by God. In the garden of Eden God gave his very first son and daughter everything they needed and he also gave them a limit.

“And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” Genesis 2: 16-17.

When Adam and Eve resisted the limit that God set for them, they were acting out of a belief that they knew better than God. The serpent tempts them to go against God's authority, stating that they can be like God if they go against the limit that he set.

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". Genesis 5:3

We face that same temptation today. When I disrespect the limits of my mind and body, I am believing that I can have it all, do it all, and achieve it all by myself. It's all well and good to think that way... until I push myself into stress, anxiety, and burnout. It's the American way! But thankfully, it's not God's way. The truth is, a lot of times in life, we will be in over our heads. We will not be able to achieve everything we set out to do, we will not get everything we chase after, and things will not always happen in our desired timeline. Our energy and potential and strength are not unlimited resources. If you think they are, you really should check your ego!

Ultimately, I think that acknowledging and respecting our limits is an opportunity for us to rest in the fact that we are not God and we don't have to be. This can actually be a great relief and a deep source of peace. This Advent Season I encourage you to rest in the fact that you were never meant to be limitless and you don't have to do it all. You can rest in the peace of knowing that God has everything in His hands.

<3 LM