Let Your Obstacles Be Your Guide

Hitting a wall is common in the healing and growth process

but isn’t talked about much. Has it happened to you? You’ve been doing a lot of things right. Eating more organic veggies, doing more of the things your doctor suggests, engaging in mindset and personal development practices, finding a movement practice that feels good, going to therapy every week…. and you probably got a pretty good return on your investment at first. It was working!... until, suddenly, it wasn’t anymore. Progress stalled. You hit some kind of invisible plateau. And the things that usually help you get things moving again aren’t anymore. It seems so unfair, right?!

Don’t miss the real healing opportunity

being triggered by what seems like a dead-end. Addressing your symptoms, getting healthy and making improvements in as many areas of your life as possible is essential. But I bet you’re hyper-focusing in some areas while completely ignoring or under-addressing others.   

You CANNOT be unhealthy somewhere in your emotional life, no matter how many green smoothies you drink or pilates classes you take. We can’t make up for lack in one area by overachieving in another. You were designed to be a whole, healthy, harmonious being: dysfunction can’t and won’t be confined to just one area of your life. It slowly trickles down into dysfunction elsewhere- and eventually, everywhere.

You won’t get by with toxicity in your intimate relationships or an upside-down work-life balance or complete lack of creative expression or critical self-talk because you get a weekly massage and juice carrots every morning… not for long. Because, eventually, even the very best stuff that has served you well so far… just won’t anymore. An obstacle arrives.

Sometimes doing all the right stuff isn’t enough

and any wellness provider knows that there often comes a point when progress stalls out for their clients. It seems inexplicable. Many clients walk away, thinking it’s their fault or their practitioner’s fault or they have the wrong strategy in place. So they scrap the plan and start shopping for new- new modalities and therapies, new products and programs, more and more expensive experts.

Then, they might make a little more progress- right up until they hit another wall. At which point they figure they really hadn’t found the perfect product or person to fix them yet, and off they go in search of the next best thing. And round and round they go. Why isn’t the formula for getting truly well more straightforward?

Hint: it is. The key is to look at why you’re stuck, plateaued, or imbalanced when you’re working so hard not to be. The obstacle- whether it’s a symptom, emotion, or behavior-  that’s keeping you from getting back into flow has a message for you.

The message in the obstacle

is impossible to read if you focus only on addressing your symptoms. The root cause must be healed- the reason the symptom, challenge, or obstacle showed up. Because until you do, the symptoms just keep coming. It can feel like body and mind are betraying you. But, the fact that you even arrived at a roadblock in your journey means you’ve already progressed more than you think you have. Don’t jump ship now. Dig deeper. The obstacle is simply the deeper source of injury coming into view, asking you to heal it so your bodymind can stop creating symptoms to try to force your attention.

If you’re curious to see how obstacles show up uniquely for you, check this out.

I’m on a mission to teach you to use the obstacles. There are a lot of things out there in this big world that can help you feel better. And even more that can help you look better. But the real goal is to be better.

Obstacles are your opportunity

to uplevel- physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and energetically. If you’re willing to decipher the message the obstacle has for you.

I’m so tired of seeing strong, powerful women decide that, because they get stuck sometimes, they must be doing it wrong or are extra broken and un-fixable. And that their efforts are better spent making sure no one knows the truth about how they struggle beneath the façade.

First, stop ignoring or glossing over the obstacles. Instead, see them as a tool to help you upgrade, from the bottom-up and inside-out. No more inauthentic pretending-away-the-challenges. They’re there to focus your efforts in exactly the right place. So pay attention. Authentically engage with them.

Because without authenticity we lock ourselves into faking better while closing the door on actually becoming better- making it literally impossible to align with the best, most expanded versions of ourselves.

The truth is, there’s no point in exhausting yourself trying so hard to improve things, while literally blocking your own progress. Talk about counterproductive! What’s better? Move the blocks.

There’s a roadmap for your journey

available to you. The way dysfunction and imbalance- your obstacles- show up uniquely for you {whether physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional} is rooted in your subconscious limiting beliefs and buried emotions.

We innocently, but deeply, invest in the stories we believe about ourselves and the world around us. But stories are only stories- yes, they feel pretty damn true but they’re mostly fictional. We can consciously outgrow and challenge our stories, outwardly desiring or choosing something different. So why isn’t it enough to make a new choice or work hard at a good plan to achieve it?

Because at the same time, we often subconsciously continue to tightly hold onto the old stories, patterning, and programs- even though it doesn’t serve us and the new path we desire.

All without realizing that it’s possible to change the storyline and stop working against ourselves. We only need to follow the roadmap our challenges reveal.

Mind-Body-Spirit healing

might sound a little “out there” to you. It really just refers to the fact that you are far more than a physical body. You’re also an emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual being. Your story- past, present, and future- involves all these integrated parts of you, all the time.

You know that finding health in one area helps the others. For example, it’s no secret that exercise can boost your emotional and mental states. But sometimes that’s not enough. Exercise only gets you so far if there’s pain, injury, and imbalance radiating throughout your emotional body. Significant emotional injury creates a snowball effect, also harming your mental, energetic, spiritual, and physical health.

And because imbalance affects all your bodies, it must be acknowledged and resolved in all bodies. But don’t let that scare you. Influencing your physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional health through the energetic body is truly painless, no matter how devastating things may seem. You don’t have to re-experience injury or re-traumatize yourself to heal a painful past.

All you have to do is pay attention to your obstacles- to the patterns, beliefs, and emotions that underscore them. Their entire reason for showing up is to highlight what’s most important to release and heal, so you can build a broad, solid foundation for true wellness.

When you experience stuck-ness, pain, or imbalance of any kind, take a moment to investigate what’s creating the stagnancy. Ask why the roadblock appeared. What purpose did your old stories and programs serve at one point? And then process and release the old emotion, injury, and programming so the roadblock never needs to cross your path again.

don’t work hard at some stuff while skipping others-

that’s just a way of scrambling for control. Hyper-focus on your food or exercise so you can tell yourself that you’re okay while you ignore severe anxiety or constant headaches or the little voice that’s telling you to leave is a pretty pathetic band-aid hiding a gaping wound. It won’t last- because what’s in your best interest is to expose and heal the wound, not hide it.

Yes, keep working on getting quality sleep every night. Manage your stress. Drink more water. But don’t ignore that incredibly stressful and toxic situation at work and think that more veggies on your plate will fix everything.

Look below symptoms at what’s held in your subconscious:

the limiting beliefs, pain, and unprocessed emotions. They’re what’s really keeping you stuck, sick, or dysregulated {yep- it’s you; it’s always you in your own way}. When you heal the root cause for dysfunction in all the bodies, all your healthy habits, smart strategies, and helpful techniques begin to work better. Progress returns. Momentum builds. You feel more aligned with healing and personal transformation.

Obstacles are your personalized road map. That they happen isn’t the problem- not hearing their message is. Ready to listen?