Caterpillar Soup
Hi friend,
Piggybacking on last week's theme of going back to basics when things are feeling unclear, this week we're looking at the messiness of metamorphosis. Specifically the uncomfortable in-between phase after something old has died or been shed but before the new thing being evolved into has emerged.
I've been very personally familiar with this mushy limbo phase recently and am hearing it from a lot of my coaching clients and community members right now too.
It also seems like huge swaths of humans are currently trying to propel themselves back into “normal” modes of being — socializing, working, health — by pretending these past few incredibly intense, turbulent, uncertain years never happened.
We tend to do this as humans, right? Try to push past unpleasant feelings and just move forward toward brighter days and more solid ground.
And while of course harnessing the power of our minds and positive behaviors to get ourselves back on track when and where we can is a wonderful and important thing — there are downsides to pushing forward before the past has been integrated.
These human minds of ours love certainty. They're constantly grasping at things and beliefs that can help us feel more solid; more permanent. And they try to convince us that transformation should be quick and painless.
But the inconvenient reality is, nothing is actually certain or permanent. And true transformation requires the death of something old and the birth of something new.
And that process is inherently messy. To put it in vivid terms, Scientific American describes the metamorphosis from caterpillar into butterfly this way:
“If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out.”
We tend to try to rush past that soupy phase into our next — less messy, less unpleasant — phase. And understandably so. The “soupy phase” doesn't tend to be much fun.
But it's a necessary part of the process of transformation. And if we cut open the cocoon too soon, we shortchange ourselves of the chance to let our beautiful, fresh, new wings fully develop to the point where when we emerge from the cocoon, they're really ready to pump.
So what if we practice staying with the uncomfortable limbo phase for even just a moment longer than usual each time we notice we're in it?
Like sitting in meditation, we deepen our capacity to be with intense life experience by letting ourselves — slowly but surely — be with greater intense sensations as they arise…and then pass through…again and again and again.
Our self-trust deepens each time we prove to ourselves that we can stay with an intense moment without reacting to it in our same old habitual way.
We have such a vaster capacity for being with the fullness of life — even the intense and unpleasant parts — than our minds often have us believe.
So here's to you tapping into the curiosity and courage to let things dissolve into “the soup” when they need to, and enough faith to trust that something beautiful will emerge on the other side.
And this Hanging in the Hammock Between “Over” & "Next" blog offers more space to explore the potency of not rushing through the in-between phase.
With Love,