What Stands in the Way

Summer in New England is in full swing. Long days, warm evenings, gardens in bloom, and every opportunity to spend a little more time outdoors.

I’ve been enjoying a few weekends away myself, most recently in New Hampshire and Vermont. Whenever I spend time with friends or family, the conversation often turns to Reclaiming Capacity. People ask what I’ve been working on, and I always enjoy sharing how the work has been evolving.

One of the things that excites me in these convos is how quickly people connect with The Map. I think it’s because it gives shape to something that has previously felt intangible. Hard to “look in the eyes.”
Not any more.

When I introduce The Map to a group, we typically follow a clear path of exploration. First Habits. Then Personal Accountability. Then Inner Dialogue. Only after those three do we begin exploring the rest of the territories. I’ve found that understanding those foundational concepts makes rest of The Map land more fully and feel more “Oh! Of course.”

One-to-one coaching, however, unfolds a little differently.

Once someone understands those first three territories, their own life begins guiding our exploration. Their challenges. Their relationships. Their aspirations. Their questions. Life itself becomes the curriculum.

Which brings me to an important sidebar.

What stands in the way…

I spend a great deal of time studying philosophy, ancient wisdom, neuroscience and psychology. The question “What makes us tick?” never seems to get old, for me. Stoic philosophy has long been one of my favorites. Years ago, I devoured the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca, and one line from Aurelius’ Meditations has stayed with me:

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

What does he mean by that?

Since we’ve just wrapped up the FIFA World Cup, let’s use soccer as an example. Imagine you’re Lionel Messi at four years old, just learning the game. How long do you think soccer would remain interesting if there were no goalie…and no opposing team? Probably not very long.

The challenge created by the goalkeeper isn’t interrupting the game. The challenge IS the game.

The goalie exists precisely to require greater skill, creativity and perseverance. The same is true in so many areas of life. If everyone were accepted into Caltech, would admission feel like much of an accomplishment? If parenting were effortless, would it be nearly as rewarding?

The obstacle doesn’t simply present challenge. Often, it shapes who we become.

Personal accountability

Looking back at The Map, you’ll notice that after Habits comes our first keystone territory: Personal Accountability. Interestingly, this is one of the territories that initially creates the most resistance in folks.

For many people, the phrase brings back memories of being scolded as a child or blamed for something that went wrong. That isn’t what The Map’s Personal Accountability is about. Not even close. Personal accountability isn’t about taking responsibility for everything that happens to us.

It’s about taking responsibility for how we participate in our experience of what happens.

That distinction changes everything. If someone breaks into our home while we’re away, we didn’t choose that. Life sometimes (often?!?) delivers experiences that are entirely outside our control. But from that moment forward, we begin making choices.

• How do we respond?
• How do we treat ourselves?
• How do we treat others?
• Where do we place our attention?
• What meaning do we assign to what happened?

Those choices begin shaping our experience. That is personal accountability, and in The Map, the descriptor “keystone” that I used earlier is important. In architecture, the keystone is the central stone at the top of an arch. Remove it, and the entire structure loses its integrity. Its presence holds the rest of the arch together.

I’ve found personal accountability functions much the same way.

Without it, it’s remarkably easy to spend our lives explaining why someone else is responsible for our experience.

Work is stressful because my boss…

My relationship is difficult because my partner…

I’m unhappy because my kids…

Human nature naturally wants to point outward for why we feel the way we feel. But perhaps…what stands in the way becomes the way.

Freedom and capacity

Paradoxically, the moment we begin taking responsibility for our own experience, something unexpected happens.

We become freer.

Not because difficult things stop happening; they won’t. Trees still fall on houses. People still disappoint us. Plans still unravel. Traffic happens. Life continues being unpredictable.

But our relationship with those experiences begins to change.

Years ago, when a tree fell on my home, I certainly wasn’t smiling my way through the whole experience. I cried a few times. I sometimes felt frustrated. I complained about insurance adjusters who weren’t returning my calls. But I felt differently stewarding that experience than I would’ve felt if that tree had hit ten years earlier. There was more calm and confidence than there was drama. Less stress.

Reclaiming Capacity isn’t about perfection, and it’s not another set of boxes to check. It’s a lens, and it’s a practice. A way of seeing ourselves, other people, stress, relationships and life itself.

The beautiful thing about a new lens is that once we’ve looked through it, it’s difficult to return to our previous way of seeing. We begin noticing choices where we previously saw only obstacles. Capacity where we once felt powerless.

Perhaps that’s what Marcus Aurelius was pointing toward all along.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

Not because obstacles magically disappear, but because they become invitations. Invitations to notice, to choose, to practice.

And perhaps that’s one of life’s subtle paradoxes.

Sometimes the very thing we’ve been resisting is the doorway to becoming someone we couldn’t have become any other way.

Where are you seeing life presenting an obstacle, that a new lens reveals as an invitation?

Where in your life might the very thing you’ve been resisting be inviting you to grow?