Remember back to your childhood? Close your eyes and see the fluttering of a beautiful monarch butterfly, gracefully ascending and descending from flower to flower. Harken back to that early science class when you learned about the caterpillar, its journey into the chrysalis and the remarkable metamorphosis from a creepy crawly critter to a graceful winged acrobat. Caterpillars are not the only creatures that transform themselves. We as humans also undergo metamorphoses, many of them actually over the course of our lives.
What Is Metamorphosis?
Metamorphosis is defined as a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means. Is 2014 the year that you will undergo a transformation, be it the first one or one of many experienced over the course of years?
Looking Back At Our Metamorphoses.
Over the course of our lives, we undergo many changes, some from within and some from outside forces acting upon us. Spend a moment thinking back over the course of your life to this point in time. If you are having difficulty doing so, I invite you to look back at your senior class portrait, your college graduation, your wedding photos, that first picture of you and your first child. There is not one among us that can honestly say there isn’t a marked difference, certainly in our physical appearance, at each stage depicted in these photos. But I encourage you to look deeper than the physical. Ignore for a moment that 70’s hairdo. Ignore too the fashion statement you were or were not making. Look closer. Look particularly into your eyes in each of those photos. It is said our eyes are the windows to our soul. What do you see in your eyes?
Each time we are faced with a major life event, we undergo a metamorphosis – some more dramatic than others. Marriage finds us sharing our lives with another in the most intimate of ways. We learn to respect another individual’s wishes and desires, his or her fears, and the impacts achieving a goal or falling short of it has on him or her. We learn to compromise. We also learn to love, trust, and cherish. What transformations did your marriage manifest for you? How did your marriage change you, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually? Likewise, divorce transforms us, physically from being one of a pair of intimate human beings to being alone. But does it necessarily make us lonely? Death, too, transforms us, sometimes ripping us apart without any warning, forcing a sudden change. Other times it allows us to slowly loosen our grasp and let go, phasing in our change.
These life changes require us to evolve. Wanted or not, we are faced with the opportunity to become reborn. We are sequestered in our own chrysalis to emerge anew. Our old models of thought and behavior, like an old house, become ripe for remodeling.
Embrace The Opportunity
Our individual metamorphoses, whether voluntary or involuntary, present us with unique opportunities. Why not embrace each and every one of these opportunities, rather than fear them? We can open our lives and every aspect of them to new beginnings, just like the caterpillar cum monarch butterfly.
Where are you in your transformation cycle? Are you stuck in a rut? Are you desirous of change but the mere thought of any change, no matter how small, makes you anxious and fearful? Are you looking for more from life? Do you reflect back and ask is this all there is?
If you are seeking to change, wanting to transform from your current state of mind, body, feeling, etc., to a new one, look to the caterpillar for guidance. Go inside yourself. Seek out quiet times and comfortable, cocoon-like spaces that foster deep thought and mindful meditation. Journal your questions. Likewise, journal the thoughts, words and feelings that accompany those questions, no matter how cryptic they may seem at the time. Use these journal entries to formulate new questions, mining deeper and deeper into your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. Fear not the outcome. Instead, embrace what emerges, giving it wings to fly – loving it!
I leave you with this quote:
Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. (King Whitney Jr., from Laura Moncur’s Motivational Quotations.)