WHEN THE PATH IS BLOCKED

“When the path is blocked, back up and see more of the way.”
~ Anonymous

We are each a mountain for the other to climb, and often our path to love is interrupted by a mishap or a problem or something unexpected that needs attending. We tend to call these unexpected things in life “obstacles.”

Often the thing in the way comes from another person: a stubbornness falls like a tree blocking where we want to go, or a sadness comes like a flash flood to muddy the road between us, or just as we go to rest in the clearing we have prepared, we are bitten by something hiding in the undergrowth. Thus, in daily ways, we have this constant choice: to see each other as the stubborn, muddy, biting thing that blocks our way, or to back up and take in the whole person as we would a mountain in its entirety, dizzy when looking up into its majesty.

When we are blocked in our closeness with another, we have this constant opportunity: to raise our eyes and behold each other completely, then to kneel and lift the fallen tree, or cross the flooded path, or pluck and toss the biting thing. We have the chance to keep climbing, so we might cup the water that runs from each other, so might quench our thirst as from a mountain stream, knowing that love like water comes softly through the hardest places.

~ Center yourself and bring to mind a loved one - a friend, a partner, or a family member - and focus on the one stubborn thing coming from them right now.

~ Without denying this difficulty, inhale and widen your heart’s view. Back up, if you can, and see the whole person, stubbornness and all.

~ Breathe deeply and feel both the difficulty that is theirs, as well as the entirety of their spirit which causes you to love them.

The Book of Awakening

~ Mark Nepo