This week, our Monday Book Club began exploring The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The idea is that we may have an unconscious limit on how much happiness, success, love or abundance we allow ourselves to experience.
When life starts going particularly well, something inside us can become uncomfortable. We might manufacture worries, create unnecessary problems, disrupt a good routine or find reasons to feel unhappy again.
Why would we do that?
And, more importantly, how do we learn to stop?
1. What if we’re not used to feeling good?
One participant shared an experience, everything was going well professionally. There were no obvious problems, but instead of simply enjoying the moment, she noticed an uncomfortable thought emerging:
“This can’t be going this well.”
She realised that adjusting to good circumstances could feel almost as difficult as dealing with bad ones.
Another participant recognised exactly the same pattern.
She described how, after a period of doing well, she sometimes started searching for something to feel unhappy about. Her routine was working. She was exercising, reading, working and feeling content. Then, almost unexpectedly, she would start disrupting it.
Perhaps by binge-watching television late into the night, damaging her sleep, waking up late and gradually abandoning the habits that had been making her feel good.
Looking back, she began to recognise a pattern.
When things go well for too long, she sometimes creates the conditions that make things go badly again.
This raised an uncomfortable question for the group:
Do we sometimes have a lower tolerance for happiness than we realise? Perhaps we have become so familiar with stress, struggle and uncertainty that a period of calm feels unfamiliar. We know how to deal with problems. But do we know how to receive happiness without questioning it?
2. The voice that tells us we don’t deserve it
The conversation went deeper when we connected self-sabotage with self-worth.
One participant suggested that if we repeatedly interrupt our own happiness, perhaps somewhere inside we don’t fully believe we deserve it.
This is a difficult thought to confront.
We might consciously want success, financial security, meaningful relationships and a peaceful life.
But when those things begin to happen, another internal voice appears:
“Is this too much?” “Do I really deserve this?” “Something must be missing.” “Surely it can’t be this easy.” Sometimes the problem isn’t that we don’t know what we want. It’s that we haven’t learned to feel comfortable having it.
The group discussed how these internal voices may come from somewhere.
They can carry messages from childhood, family expectations, past experiences and the beliefs we absorbed before we were old enough to question them.
One participant remembered growing up with a particularly protective parent. Having too many friends or too much social activity had been associated with a lack of safety. Years later, even when surrounded by wonderful people, she could still hear that old message telling her that perhaps she was becoming too social. The circumstances had changed. But the internal voice had stayed.
Sometimes the limits we experience today are inherited beliefs that no longer belong to the life we’re living.
3. Give your inner critic a name
One of the most practical suggestions from the discussion was also one of the funniest. What if we gave that negative internal voice a name? Instead of treating every critical thought as an objective truth, we could recognise it as a familiar character appearing in our minds.
One participant suggested giving this voice a deliberately silly name.
When it starts saying: “You’re not good enough.” “Things are going too well. Something must be wrong.” “You shouldn’t do that.”
We could simply respond: “Oh, here you are again. Not today.” The point isn’t to pretend that negative thoughts don’t exist. It’s to create a little distance from them.
Another participant shared a related practice: gently calling herself by her own name whenever she noticed herself becoming caught in negative thoughts. She imagined herself as someone standing in front of her, almost like a dear friend who deserved kindness and protection. Rather than fighting the negative thoughts directly, she tried to bring her attention back to herself with a gentler voice.
Both approaches pointed toward the same idea: We don’t have to believe every thought that appears in our heads.
Awareness creates the possibility of choice. And perhaps, with practice, we can strengthen the voice that supports us rather than the one that constantly pulls us backwards.
4. The familiar isn’t necessarily the right place to stay
Another powerful theme emerged when we discussed why people sometimes remain in situations they know aren’t right for them.
One participant reflected on ending a long-term relationship.
For a long time, she had interpreted her sadness afterwards as evidence that she had made the wrong decision or hadn’t been brave enough.
But with more distance, she began to understand something different.
Perhaps she had been sad because she had done something unfamiliar.
Society often gives us a familiar script:
Find a partner.
Get married.
Stay together without seperation.
Build a life according to expectations.
When we step outside that script, even if the decision is right for us, the unfamiliarity can feel frightening.
We may question ourselves simply because we are no longer following the expected path.
This led to a beautiful reflection:
Sometimes we don’t miss the old situation. We miss the familiarity of knowing how to live inside it.
The unfamiliar can feel wrong simply because we haven’t experienced it before.
But unfamiliar doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
And familiar doesn’t necessarily mean good.
5. You can love someone so deeply and still walk away
This was perhaps the most emotionally powerful part of our conversation.
One participant shared a line from a TV drama: “I love you so much, but I love myself more.”
It opened up a discussion about the difference between loving someone and choosing to remain in a relationship with them.
Can we genuinely love someone and still recognise that the relationship for whichever reason isn’t right for us?
Can we accept that love exists without allowing it to determine every decision we make?
One participant reflected on a book she had read, Educated, and the difficult decision to leave a family environment despite still loving the people in it.
There was something important in that distinction.
We don’t necessarily have to deny our feelings to make a different choice.
We don’t have to turn love into resentment just because we decide to leave.
We can acknowledge what we feel, accept what is the reality about the situation, and still choose another direction.
Sometimes the courage to move forward means accepting the truth, knowing the love is deeply rooted there, and still walking away.
6. Choose the new over the old familiar
One participant shared a sentence that stayed with the group:
Choose the new over the old familiar.
This doesn’t mean that everything new is automatically better.
It means recognising when we are returning to an old pattern simply because we know how to live with it.
We might already know that a different decision would be healthier. We might know that a new opportunity could help us grow. We might even know exactly what we need to do. But the old pattern feels comfortable because it is predictable. We know what to expect. We know how to behave. We know how to explain it to ourselves. The new path requires us to tolerate uncertainty. And that is often where we hesitate.
Perhaps the real challenge is not always finding the courage to make a big decision.
Sometimes it is finding the courage to repeat a small new decision until it becomes familiar.
7. Practise allowing good things to last
Towards the end of this part of our discussion, we returned to the original question:
How do we stop sabotaging ourselves when life is going well?
There wasn’t one universal answer.
Different people described different practices:
Notice the moment when a negative internal voice appears.
Recognise where an old belief might have come from.
Call yourself back with kindness.
Observe the thoughts and behaviours that interrupt a good routine.
Practise returning to the habits that make you feel content.
And perhaps most importantly, allow yourself to enjoy a good period without immediately searching for something to worry about.
We often spend so much time trying to improve our lives that we forget to practise receiving the improvements.
Happiness is not only something we pursue. It is also something we need to learn to tolerate, appreciate and sustain.
What if the next big leap is simply allowing ourselves to be happy?
Our discussion of The Big Leap left us with a question that feels worth carrying into everyday life:
What happens when we stop treating happiness, success and abundance as things we must constantly earn, and start allowing ourselves to experience them?
We may have inherited beliefs that tell us to stay small. We may have learned to expect disappointment. We may have become so familiar with struggle that peace feels suspicious. We may even disrupt our own progress because the person we are becoming feels unfamiliar. But awareness gives us a starting point. We can notice the voice. Question the belief. Recognise the old pattern. And choose a different response. We don’t need to become perfect overnight. We don’t need to eliminate every negative thought. Perhaps the next big leap is much simpler:
To let a good thing be good.
To receive success without guilt.
To enjoy a peaceful period without searching for trouble.
To choose a new path even when the old one feels safer.
And to stop making ourselves smaller just because a bigger, happier life feels unfamiliar.
Maybe we don’t always need to work harder to create a better life. Sometimes we need to learn how to let ourselves have one.