The Obstacle Is The Way

You’ve heard me say this several times by now and you’ve seen how I apply this to my physical journey, but at this point it became my guiding idea in regards to working on Big Tab Two. The obstacle is the way – it is always the way.

If it feels like I am veering off track into deep, personal, emotional, or irrelevant stuff, just keep reading. The tools I used for the body were now going to work for the mind, and, ultimately fold back on themselves for the body again.

MIND <—> BODY

Dance

In regards to Big Tab Two, I had danced around, set aside, flat out ignored, made up stories for myself – I did basically everything except get real and communicate, take care of settling history, make amends, and own my part out loud. 

It was time to turn what was impeding me in every way into something that would empower me. It was time to use my greatest tools on the most incongruent part of my life.

Read

Reading the works of Brené Brown, especially those that dig deeper into shame and vulnerability, gave me the mirror and validation I needed. She gave me the courage to speak up, be me out loud, and have conversations that would be based on learning and understanding. One of the tenets I live by is to seek first to understand (thank you Steven Covey) so why not apply that to all of this? Brené also taught me that shame dies when we tell our stories and that “when we tell our stories, we change the world.”

Reading books like Why Won’t You Apologize? and Broken Open helped me feel validated in what I was feeling and what I had experienced. This was an important place to go because only then could I move forward into taking the next steps.

Pain is not tragic. Pain is magic. Suffering is tragic. Suffering is what happens when we avoid pain and consequently miss our becoming.

Glennon Doyle, Untamed

Amen, Glennon! 

Difficult Conversations gave me a more analytic framework to work from. This took the spinning emotional-ness out of it and helped me create structure, identify clear goals, and find a process centered on “learning conversations”. I shifted from wanting to just tell tell tell into wanting to ask questions and learn more about intentions and perspectives. Back to seeking first to understand.

And The Obstacle Is The Way is basically my heart song. I adore stoic philosophy and recommend this book to everyone I know. Just as I have leaned in to every part of my physical journey, it was time to apply that to my inner self. Lean in because there is more to this. Lean in and discover the benefits.

A good person dyes events with his own color . . . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.

Seneca

Only because my physical journey has been so convoluted did I dig deeper and finally face this old obstacle. What most people may deem as unfortunate, unlucky, “poor you” – to me is a huge gift! It all led me to this point of seeking to put everything together that I otherwise would not have touched.

See things for what they are.
Do what we can.
Endure and bear what we must.

What blocked the path now is a path.
What once impeded action advances action.
The Obstacle is the Way.

Ryan Holiday

Write

It was time to advance my own action, so I wrote a letter.

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