Permission to Be In the Way
It begins with a phrase: "Don't get in your own way."
We’ve all heard it. Some of us have lived it. For those raised inside belief systems like Christian Science, it was more than advice — it was law.
Christian Science, born in 19th-century America, is a uniquely American religion. One that insists reality is mental, not material. That sickness is not real, only the result of incorrect thought. That pain, fear, trauma — if they persist, it’s because you haven’t yet "corrected" your consciousness.
On paper, it promises healing through divine love. In practice, it often demands emotional self-surveillance.
There is no external enemy. No evil to blame. Only your thoughts. Your limitations. Your failure to rise. If you’re still hurting? You must be in your own way.
But here’s the thing: this isn’t just religious dogma. This is cultural doctrine.
America at the turn of the century was a nation obsessed with individualism, self-reliance, and the myth of the self-made man. Christian Science didn’t invent those values. It crystallized them into spiritual form:
Suffering? You must be thinking wrong.
Need help? That’s a lack of spiritual maturity.
Still sick? Then your soul isn’t in alignment.
It’s the spiritual version of bootstraps.
The result is a wound that many Americans carry, whether they were raised in Christian Science or not: a deep suspicion of our own pain.
We learn to silence ourselves before we even speak.
We call it strength, but it’s shame in disguise.
We fear that acknowledging struggle makes us weak. That admitting confusion is failure. That slowing down is a character flaw. And so the phrase returns: Don’t get in your own way.
But what if the part of us "in the way" is the one that needs to be witnessed, not erased?
What if being “in our own way” is actually the beginning of knowing ourselves?
This is the paradox of healing in a culture that glorifies control: We blame ourselves for not transcending the very conditions that shaped us.
The phrase "Don’t get in your own way" carries a shadow of accusation:
That your suffering is self-inflicted
That your hesitation is laziness
That your emotions are excess baggage
But the truth is softer. Wiser.
Sometimes being in your own way is your soul asking for care. Sometimes slowness is sacred. Sometimes the way is the pause. The pivot. The permission.
To grow up in Christian Science, or in any culture of hyper-individualism, is to inherit a map that marks tenderness as danger, and vulnerability as failure.
We need new maps.
Maps that name the complexity of our experience. Maps that include rest stops. Maps that allow for grief.
Because we are not obstacles to be overcome. We are ecosystems learning how to live.
And we are allowed to be in our own way for a while.
Sometimes, that’s exactly where we need to be.