At Capacity
At Capacity | San Diego Therapy
when you don’t even know where to start
This post was written without AI.
It was the early 2000s and I was at a Denny’s.
I remember the waiter gave us some styrofoam boxes to pack our leftovers. We were confused. The waiter said their new policy was to have customers pack their leftovers. Soon after, this trend was everywhere.
The process of offloading energy, service, and cost to customers has only been increasing. Last week was another first for me: 3% fee for a credit card… for servicing my car! From every angle we’re being commoditized.
Without our consent, we’ve had to pick up the pieces—but we’ve got limits on what our souls can handle. Each added responsibility increases pressure within. Everyone feels it.
The bottom line?
People are at capacity.
To compensate for this building pressure, there’s two modes of non-optimal habits: try to increase energetic output or try to numb oneself. Either way, we’re tuning out of life and our relationship with ourselves.
Entertaining an emotional conversation—whether that’s with ourselves or others—that involves potential life changes feels like writing an email with no Wi-Fi. And here’s another reality: delaying necessary conversations only increases the severity of the problem.
If you’re unsure how to navigate overwhelming emotional terrain, try this:
Write “me” at the center of a blank piece of paper. Then around yourself, write different domains of your life that take energy or are struggles. Likely you’ll have 6–12 pressing domains (i.e. community, relationship, kids, work, sleep, weight loss, anger, finances, etc.).
Now assess which of these domains are impacting the others with arrows. Often we don’t realize how much one neglected area affects the others. One unresolved issue could affect the quality of every domain in your life.
Rank these areas based on how much they’re impacting one another. Often we don’t want to look at the top few areas, but this is the work! It’s completely possible you may have done all you can to work with your top ranked domain; however if you haven’t or there’s a high-ranked domain you’ve neglected, write a few paragraphs on the impact this is having on all other areas of life.
Now write a few paragraphs on what life would look like if you had this domain resolved or feeling complete. Be as vivid as possible. Imagine a day in your life with this stressor feeling light and free. Imagine a week in your life. What does life look like? Feel like? How do people respond to you? How does the world shift for you?
Each day return to this visual of your new life. Read over the words again and again. Feel free to add to it. Visualize it. What changes? What immediate steps call out to you to make this possible? What’s a small change? A large change? Respond to the energy that’s within your heart.
We unknowingly become addicted to feeling our old patterns. It’s important to recognize them, and just as important to become addicted to feeling new patterns. Soon enough, you can rewrite the script and your new patterns will feel like old.
If you’re at emotional capacity in making a life change, I offer in-person therapy for individuals and couples in San Diego and North County San Diego, as well as Telehealth therapy across California. Feel free to reach out.