Roadblocks to Building Blocks

On the mat, it’s easy to think of challenges as obstacles. Tight hamstrings, shaky balance, racing thoughts, they can all feel like roadblocks. But sometimes, the bigger challenge is the blocks we create for ourselves.

We tell ourselves stories: I’m falling. I can’t do this. I’ll never get it right. But what if we looked closer? When you’re wobbling in a balance pose, maybe you’re not “failing” maybe your body, made mostly of water, is just shifting, recalibrating, and figuring out the terrain beneath you. Wobbling is information. It’s your body learning.

We don’t just meet roadblocks on the mat, we carry them. Old stories, self-doubt, fear, perfectionism. They weigh on us, and we hold them tighter than we realize.

One of my favorite parables from Ajahn Chah speaks to this. He once gathered his students around a huge boulder in the courtyard and asked, “Is this heavy?” Of course, everyone agreed it was. Ajahn Chah smiled and said, “Not if you don’t pick it up.” What a simple reminder: the weight we carry is often the weight we choose to hold onto.

So what if instead of letting blocks bury us, we climbed on top of them? Instead of roadblocks, they become building blocks, a foundation to stand on, a higher perspective to see from.

On the mat, it could look like reframing the wobble as wisdom, the resistance as resilience, the heaviness as something you can set down. Off the mat, it’s the same: the challenges, the stories, the weight we carry, they can all become part of the foundation we stand on.

The invitation: Next time you bump into a block, pause and ask yourself, Am I carrying this unnecessarily? Can I stand on it instead of under it and check out the view?

That shift in perspective might be the most powerful building block of all.