The Butterfly

While healing and solitude may not sound like anything glamourous, I’d like to point out something about the butterfly.

The stages that a butterfly must go through to earn its wings is nothing short of awing. Not only do they begin as one creature, disappear into the darkness, only to emerge as another that is completely different. But a caterpillar is made in such a way that it essentially digests itself and turns to complete liquid before coming back together to form the butterfly. And the ONLY way they can fly, is by the muscle that is built during the struggle to break free from the cocoon. If interrupted or assisted in any way, it could ruin their ability to fly at all.

We can’t just say that we forgive, or take a class, or practice new things. While those things are also important, they can’t bypass the emotional work that needs to be done. We must learn to sit in the darkness and allow our emotions to expose themselves to us fully. Witnessing them. Letting them take us down to their depths without our trying to judge them, correct them, or tamp them back down with food, alcohol, drugs, sex, entertainment, or some other distraction. -Discovering our wholeness, facing parts of ourselves that we may not have seen before and sitting with them. Digesting our story along with the ones we’ve told our self and questioning their truths.

There’s something else about a butterfly’s transformation that is important to point out. Metamorphoses also requires and happens during deep rest and solitude. That chrysalis is suspended for a reason. How much greater is the change happening on the inside during this time than anything that we could ever erect, or see, on the outside.

If you want to change your life, embrace these secrets. Befriend all of the parts of you, without anyone else around. Loving ourselves is a struggle that most of us have – and to do it for no good reason—makes no sense! But no one can rescue us from it, or do it for us. It’s a struggle that we must earn. While it can be brutal, messy, and exhausting, breaking through those barriers that we have to/around ourselves (often referred to as shadow or egowork), can be our most beautiful work, and the very thing that gives us our wings.