You know how sometimes the same theme can seem to keep coming up, maybe in really different ways, over the course of a week or two? I’ve been coming back to this post I wrote a whiiiile ago about the butterfly and how – as a caterpillar not knowing it’s meant to be a butterfly or what it really takes to become one – he fights it when the change starts to happen. Like, FIGHTS. Because, like what the hell is this happening to his little mushy body? It’s breaking down and there’s new cells growing and it’s scary and confusing. Despite all the years of butterfly evolution, he’s freaked the f*ck out.
And I would be too.
Perhaps you can relate to this feeling: growth. It’s uncomfortable, maybe even painful. It can feel like it’s moving in the wrong direction, or taking too long, or asking things of us that we’d so much rather avoid dealing with that it’s actually just a lot easier to stay right where we are and convince ourselves it’s fine (a luxury our caterpillar friend does not have: to live mid-transformation, stuck for fear of moving forward).
Which brings me to theme #2 that’s been super present for me lately: distraction, or perhaps, stalling. I talk a lot about the smaller, every day distractions, like our phones and our tv’s and our constantly racing minds… but what about the bigger ones – the situations we unnecessarily pour our energy into? The “problems” we create for ourselves or blow out of proportion and keep poking and prodding at because as long as that’s there we won’t have to become mush in a cocoon and *just hope* that we’ll grow beautiful multi-colored wings? This is the busy work. This is the conversation you’re always having with your friends. This is the thing you keep running into over and over – and you’ll keep running into something like it until you let it go.
This is the uncomfortable thing you’ve gotten so. damn. comfortable. with.
Don’t let that thing be your story. Take your energy back and trust that you are more than that thing; that you are capable of whatever’s behind that facade you’ve convinced even yourself is real.
Release what you can’t control, which is the majority of things. Turn that magnifying glass back on yourself.
Don’t overthink it – probably the thing that immediately came to mind when this topic sunk in, that’s your thing. Let it go, clear the distraction, face the fear behind the curtain, risk the vulnerability and the discomfort. Think about the caterpillar – you think he goes into his cocoon like it’s a dressing room and just changes outfits? Slaps on a pair of wings? No. He turns into liquid. He gets real gross and uncomfortable. He has no choice but to let go and hope for the best, and it usually pays off pretty big.
Trust your evolution.
xo,
m.
