Limits

They tell you to know your limits.
To know when to say yes, and when to say no.
To know when you can indeed accomplish those three little things, and when to call in reinforcements.
To know when you can drive home, and when you need to hand the keys over.
To know when to sneak in that last word, and when to walk away.
To know when to keep digging and searching, and when to stop pushing and prodding.

I know exactly how far I can go when it comes to self-reflection.  The line between fulfilling spiritual duty and making real discoveries is thin, but I know where it is.  I know how it feels, both physically and mentally, to be approaching that line.  The pace of my thoughts begins to race.  I imagine the words bouncing around the inside of my skull, because that's how it actually feels.  My temples begin to ache. My throat tightens.  My shoulders hunch.  Heaven help me if I've eaten anything recently.  The tears build and threaten to spill if anything taunts them.

The reason they teach us to know our limits is for the sake of self-preservation, right?  To avoid car accidents and mental breakdowns and fist fights, right?  To prevent us from digging into our pain when we really shouldn't, like when we're tired or scared or not thinking well, right?

But what if the good practice of knowing our limits has created a culture that's scared of the other side? I'm not saying I want to know what's on the other side of all of these examples, but I think that I've spent so long protecting myself from, well, myself, that I don't know what to do with the pain in my life.  I've known my limits forever.  And for the most part, I've been able to control them.  But not now.  In the last week, waves of grief and pain have literally washed over me several times, without much warning and certainly without any ability to control them.  And it's terrifying.  Not so much because I'm afraid of the pain itself, but because I'm afraid of how it got there.  How long has it been lingering?  How long have I been ignoring it, and how many times will I have to process it before it leaves me?  I have found that my so-called self-preservation scheme is making it harder for me to deal with loss and pain, both from the past and in the present.  I'd like to change that for my future.  And it seems like the only way is to ignore the limit, in the proper time and space and place.  But it needs to happen.  Because this is one limit that's not helping me live.