Threshold of Adequacy

Listening for the Subtle Signal

A point is reached in one’s day—sometimes quietly, sometimes with unmistakable force—when there is a limit, a felt sense that we can go no further without cost. Something has shifted in the energetic field of a situation, a relationship, or a creative act. The change may arrive subtly: a tightening in the chest, a dimming of vitality, a barely perceptible withdrawal of interest. Or it may announce itself loudly, through exhaustion, irritation, or pain.

In my experience, it is far kinder to listen for the subtle signals and respond before the psyche is compelled to raise its voice. When life must speak more loudly, it often does so through pain. Pain is not punitive; it is diagnostic. It tells us that earlier signs were missed, that something went askew, and that we need to pause, step back, and re-establish balance.

Holding Without Overreaching

This truth has been a recurring teacher in my psychotherapy practice. I recall one session in particular when I sensed—clearly, unmistakably—that I had given enough. Continuing would not deepen the work; it would only deplete me, and paradoxically, it would not serve the patient, even though I genuinely felt I had more insight, more care, more effort to offer.

The man sitting across from me was sincere and deeply pained. He was stable and thoughtful, yet locked in a long struggle with himself. He knew what he needed to face in his life, and he knew that doing so would require real change—change he both desired and resisted. Things could not remain as he wished them to be, and yet he demanded, almost desperately, that they do so.

As we sat together, I felt a movement in my body—a quiet but firm signal from my core. It told me to stop pushing, to consciously retain my depth rather than spend it. In that moment, I recognized that I had reached what I have come to call a threshold of adequacy. By respecting it, I could remain present in a way that was both honest and boundaried: enough shared, no more; enough contact, no violation of the natural limits that protect both participants in the work.

The session reached its natural limit. He remained in pain—less than when he arrived, but more than I would have wished for him. This is often the hardest place to tolerate, for therapist and patient alike: the place where relief is partial, where the wish to fix or resolve must yield to what is possible in the moment. I know in myself, and I suspect in many of us, a strong impulse to do more than can truly be metabolized—by ourselves or by others.

As we sat there, he brought his hands to his face. His anguish was visible: a man at war with himself, the furrows deepening along his brow. Then he looked up at me and said, quietly and directly, “Thank you for being here with me. I know it’s hard on you when I fight against what we’ve gone over so many times. You must be frustrated with me. I’m grateful that you can stay while I work through this in my own way.”

Something in my chest softened. I felt a palpable release of tension, as though a held breath finally let go. In that moment, he released me from a psychological hook I am prone to place on myself—the demand to alleviate the pain of others at the expense of my own balance. Empathy, when unguarded, can slide into enmeshment. Another’s suffering becomes my suffering, not as shared human resonance but as overload. When that happens, I leave sessions drained, dysregulated, feeling—as I have often thought—like I have stuck my finger into an electrical socket.

And in truth, I have. I have crossed a threshold of adequacy.

Letting the Unfinished Be Enough

That day, we ended the session with much unresolved. And yet something essential had held. The relational field had not collapsed into a frantic search for insights or techniques to manufacture relief—an effort that so often creates more confusion than clarity. We had not overreached. We had lasted. The relationship remained coherent, respectful, and alive, even in its incompleteness.

Not everything needs to be resolved in the way we think it should be. Some things can simply be as they are—unfinished, imperfect, yet adequate. There is a quiet integrity in leaving a situation intact rather than forcing it toward an imagined ideal. Functioning without being polished. Connected without being resolved. Creative work laid down not because it is flawless, but because it has reached the place where it tells us, unmistakably, that it is finished for now.

My mind turns to the psychoanalytic mystic Michael Eigen, who writes of working a little at a time, “relishing trails, phrases, or words…trails taking us through psychotic turns of mind, bursting or trickling off into mystic moments.” There is wisdom here: doing what can be done, then letting the rest wait. Trusting that there are, and always will be, moments when enough has been done—moments when a threshold of adequacy is reached, and balance begins to settle back into the body, the mind, the soul.

When all is said and done, this may be the path we are each walking in our own way: the cultivation of a clear mind and a peaceful heart. The terrain differs for each of us, yet the principle is shared. Again and again, life brings us to thresholds—not of failure or insufficiency, but of adequacy. Learning to recognize and honor them may be one of the deepest forms of care we can offer to ourselves and to one another.

A Brief Practice: Resting at the Threshold

Pause and notice the state of your body right now.
Where is there tension, and where is there enough ease?
Allow the breath to settle without changing it.
Sense what in you has reached its limit today.
Let that limit be neither resisted nor judged.
Notice what remains intact, even unfinished.
Rest there, trusting that for this moment, it is enough.