The Papier-Mâché Rock

There was a time in my life when I was struggling. I was between jobs and marriages, a single mom, and I was trying hard to move forward. Yet it seemed that all my efforts led nowhere. I kept trying different things, but somehow, they never connected. Eventually, I started wondering: What if this imbalance isn't entirely outside of me? What if something inside me is out of alignment?

Around that time, I was following a life coach, and one of her short courses, Quantum Impulse, caught my attention. I felt as though I had hit a glass ceiling in my life—something I could see beyond but couldn't break through.

One exercise involved working with the subconscious. The coach asked us to imagine the obstacle standing in our way and then approach it. Mine appeared immediately. It was a huge rock blocking my path. Behind it, I could see only part of a beautiful sunset and a glimpse of the path continuing down the hill. But there seemed to be no way around the rock. On one side was a steep drop. The rock was too high to climb. I simply stood in front of it, desperate and completely unsure what to do next.

Then the coach asked us to move closer to whatever obstacle we had imagined. If it was physical, we were to put our hands on it and say something. I honestly don't remember the exact words anymore.

So, I walked up to my rock. I placed both hands against it and rested my forehead on its surface. I could feel the coarse, cold stone beneath my palms and against my skin—solid, hard, impossibly heavy. Standing there, pressed against its sheer mass, I felt tiny beside it, almost insignificant compared with its immovable grandeur. For a second, I just stood there. Then I began repeating the words.

I was emotional. My arms tensed, and without consciously deciding to, I pushed harder against the rock. And in that exact moment, the enormous rock toppled over. As easily as if it had been made of papier-mâché.

I froze, my mouth open. There was nothing blocking the path. And suddenly I could see the entire sunset.

I returned to that moment many times afterward, trying to absorb what it had shown me. I had spent so much time thinking about the external circumstances standing in my way. Yet in the image my mind had created, the enormous, immovable obstacle had no real weight at all. The obstacle had been in my head. And somehow that simple exercise showed it to me so vividly that I couldn't unsee it.

No, my life didn't miraculously change the next morning. The right job didn't suddenly appear, and my problems didn't evaporate. But something in my relationship with myself shifted. I trusted myself more. I became more willing to act, to choose, and to accept that my choices were mine.

Eventually, it became something of a personal mantra:

What happens in my life has a lot to do with the choices I make. I have the right to make those choices—and the responsibility for their consequences belongs to me, too.

That realization didn't remove every rock from my path. But it made me much less afraid to take on the next one.

With intention,

Nadia Granski

Self-awareness is where Ownership begins, the O in the ROI Framework of Parenting: Return on Intention.