The caterpillar is programmed by destiny to spin a cocoon and emerge a butterfly. No one knows if the caterpillar is aware of what happens during the process.
People are different. We don’t know how to spin a cocoon, and we would be scared if we could. Yet we can choose transformation. It is hard, making the choice to change. It means we deliberately give up one thing to choose another. It means we risk losing friends who don’t want to get to know us all over again in our new forms.But some of us do choose. We choose to move to a new place and start a life over. We choose to forgive bad parenting, and accept what we did get, and thrive despite of it.
That transformation is as amazing as a caterpillar’s. For all of us who have surivived, who have chosen to heal ourselves, to mother ourselves, to keep going no matter how hard, we have chosen a life of growth and transformation. We know change is possible and sustainable. Sometimes it’s a secret. Sometimes we reinvent ourselves several times. We can be more than one person.
We have a choice.
–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach and an artist. See her work at QuinnCreative.com
The cocoon is great for a while but the truth is, it soon becomes very limiting. The air becomes thin. It is time for the caterpillar to gather all its resources and haul itself out of the confining space it has spun for itself. It emerges shrivelled and a bit worse for wear, teetering on the edge of the cocoon……. but then slowly comforted by the warmth of the sun those wings begin to unfurl. Thats the defining moment. Its time to soar.
Recently I started working out, after doing little or no exercise for a long time. I found myself not loosing any weight. It seems I liked the cozy cocoon around myself, and most of all I was afraid of the change. So I ate to compensate! It took awhile to let go and let it happen, but change is scary, but a good thing most times.
I doubt very much that the caterpillar thinks at all about its transformation. The news in the past week has been full of Mrs. Edwards and her diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer and the response has been that she is ‘so brave’ for choosing to go on with her life. Anyone who has experienced a catastrophic life change will tell you that one is not ‘brave’ for going on with life, one just gets on with life as it is going to be from now on. It might even take some counseling or encouragement to stop looking back at that cocoon of treatment or adjustment as some kind of shelter, but when one is in the cocoon, one is NOT living; just going from appointment to appointment and scheduled thing to scheduled thing. There is no other choice except to NOT live. So now, those of us who have had to experience those transformations can stop feeling as if we must show ‘bravery’ all the time and be honest–sometimes change sucks; the losses sometimes are not the equal to the life we had before, but even the butterfly sometimes gets out of the cocoon just in time to become someone’s meal! That’s life!
I can’t stop imagining how the caterpillar must feel if it does know it’s spinning a cocoon and completely changing its body shape. On the other hand caterpillars probably don’t go in for deep thinking so maybe they just get on with it – which is sensible because they can’t stop the process. I know exactly what you mean regarding the transformation of self – sometimes it really does come down to a total change in attitude, accepting and moving on from the past in particular.
I have to tell you Quinn that your room here is just something else. There is so much to read, see and discover. It is really enough to have my creative juices bubbling. All I need now is the focus to direct all the ideas in to some creative pieces. But it will happen as surely as Christmas will come around again this year.
Me, too. Read Fantasy..I spin cocoons all the time and I dance.
I don’t know. I rather like the idea of spinning a nice cozy cocoon. It might be easier in some ways, too.