Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation

The power to change and transform is embedded within us all. We live as creatures of habit, yet change is the constancy that we all share. The energy of our universe vibrates with continuity, connection, and creation. A small change within one of us inevitably sends its ripples to another heart. When we fight against this cosmic flow, we step out of our dance with life, and are left bruised by the inner conflict and gasping for air in a breathless stagnation.

Our nature is to seek comfort on our journey. So when we find it, we stay in our comfort zone -- until we are pushed out, and forced back onto the path of our own evolution. Our continuous growth is an existential essential, and the only thing that propels us forward.

Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

- Anaïs Nin (more quotes)

We fear change after the warm glow of the well-known because it is intangible, something we cannot grip or physically touch. How can we trust something that is unapparent and ambiguous? When we lack trust from within, it naturally filters through, leaving us suspicious, afraid and uncomfortable. And yet, the beauty of life is the very mystery and wonder it keeps.

We have programmed ourselves to sit cocooned in the closet of comfort, preferring to cling to the falsity of the familiar rather than brave the power of possibility. For progress and growth, a deep awakening must often be forced upon us, through a painful occurrence or an inner upheaval and despair. Or an inner desire pushes us to finally emerge into the new, because the fear of staying rooted to the habitual overtakes the one for change -- inspiring us to finally and graciously break free of our cocoons.

Our catalysts and agents for change

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

- Steve Jobs (more quotes)

We need to be moved quite harshly to be liberated from old habits and behaviors; inner turmoil and despondency prompt us to retreat and rediscover our innate power for reinvention. Our seeds of potential are not sewn in tight spaces; they are frequently found in shadowy open lands, hidden from light and elusively awaiting discovery. Transformation creates confusion and upset, distress and agitation, because a re-birth requires a great unsettling and an exit from what once was.

Life’s change agents act as catalysts for the shifts that are often much needed in our lives. Pain, loss, deep-seated fears, heartbreak, tough times and challenges serve to destabilize our foundations, ripping the comfort from our bones and sparking the light of transformation from deep within. It is only through an inner death, a finality to a certain way of being, that we are pushed toward a new way forward.

When we dull the echo of the inner voice that calls us to evolve and reach for new ground, we only encourage a more forceful push from the universe in some way. Catalysts are exertions and inner magnifications of desperation that knock us down, so we can better learn to fly.

Embracing our dance with life

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

- George Bernard Shaw

When we anchor our thoughts, keeping them fixed and immutable, it whittles away our sense of openness, both in mind and heart. Our fear of change disrupts our need for movement and enrichment from new experiences. We move out of life’s dance when we remain rutted in thoughts and behaviors that are neither enlightening nor progressive. It is an inner struggle we all face, yet one that we can adapt to and flow with rather than battle against.

When we observe and liberate our thoughts we can adjust and amplify our mindset to one that does not lock us out of the fresh and unknown, but instead allows us to embrace it. Rather than fight against our challenges we can patiently and fervently guide ourselves through them. When we trust in ourselves we engage with the strength we have within; it becomes our backbone for fortifying our intuitive processes in alignment with a heightened sense of our inner being. Through an enhanced awareness of our transient nature we immerse ourselves into life’s beauty of continuity and rhythm.

The butterfly: a symbol of transformation

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

- Maya Angelou (more quotes)

Butterflies are a symbol of transformation, joy and originality -- no two sets of butterfly wings are ever the same. They sweep into sun-soaked skies and swirl around petals of vibrant colors, moving swiftly from one to the next as they trust in their dance with beauty. Butterflies are the masters of metamorphosis and adaptability, facilitating change so that life continues. The caterpillar cocooned into her chrysalis does not fight to break the shell or resist her growth. She implicitly trusts in her own inherent timing and continuity of being. Only emerging free when her wings are strong enough to fly; out of the shell breaks the beautiful butterfly.

Butterflies teach us to seek our own flexibility and flow with life. To paint new pictures, brush stroke by brush stroke. We can understand that true beauty lies in our own unique reflection, and that through wakefulness emanates our natural pattern of existence. Just as the butterfly, we can gracefully acknowledge that change is necessary for unravelling our blossom of riches.

Birth of the butterfly

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

- Richard Bach

Chaos and conflict create the chemistry for transformation and propel an exodus of the inessential from our lives. We can choose to lace ourselves with a patient and unswerving trust that the new will bring growth and value to our journey. We learn and understand that the time of the faithful caterpillar expires only for the elegance and wonder of a butterfly’s wings to unfold -- transparent and assertive in its individuality, and dynamic in its new-found freedom.