Marcus Aurelius wrote: What stands in the way becomes the way. There are many interpretations of this sentence, and indeed much of his work. I think that one
interpretation is about repetition.

What I mean by that is that some of the blocks and barriers to us getting towards our goals may in actual fact be very similar. They look different but at their core, the blockages are the same, and those barriers are actually within Us.

Maybe for example all the barriers have a thread of shyness, or a lack of confidence running through them. So its our belief about ourselves, or our sense of self worth, or our mindset that is really at the core of why we aren’t making progress.

And if we work on those, we will unlock so much of our potential. It is important to note that several interpretations of this particular sentence by Marcus Aurelius also suggest that the obstacles and barriers can be ‘within’.

What I’m adding into the mix is that the obstacles (or some) in our lives, when viewed from the perspective of ‘internal limitations’ may reveal that some/many of the external barriers may (at least in part) be overcome by working on self – often one part of ‘self. In other words the different barriers have at their core the same issue.

For example, overcoming one limiting belief may allow us to overcome more than one obstacle – and that those obstacles may have looked different on the surface, but they were in fact the same or similar in essence. Sometimes working on one limitation could dissolve many obstacles in our lives.