Today, I’m sharing a few specific concepts which may help you better understand and interpret your own life circumstances while helping you develop the opportunity to see these things with new and different perspectives. Perspectives that will help you and your future immensely!For now, I want to focus on how the very circumstances you are living through may be just a normal part of life experience and change. You may be thinking, “What??? Kelly, you just don’t understand my financial situation here! I have a major illness; my house is going into foreclosure; I’m losing money in the stock market; I just lost a million dollars. How could you ever think that THIS is normal?”
As I am in the same economic market as everyone else and have also lived through many terminal illness and death situations, I often experienced those same feelings and thoughts… until recently when something became abundantly clear and it all started with a conversation about butterflies…
Have you ever watched a caterpillar go from what it is to the beautiful butterfly it becomes? Have you ever seen one FIGHT or ARGUE with the process? If they did, from an outside perspective it would be easy to understand where they were coming from, as it just doesn’t look all that pleasant.
First, it hangs upside down (by its last legs, no less) while it’s outer skin splits to expel the newly forming chrysalis. If that wasn’t bad enough… in a very short period of time the original outer part of what the caterpillar was simply ‘falls away’.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
-Richard Bach
It takes 7 days (which might seem like an eternity to a butterfly) in typical summer weather and then a beautiful butterfly again has a choice to make the effort and come out of its cozy chrysalis. This too, is an interesting point in the process because many chrysalises are beautiful and after 7 days a monarch butterfly ‘in the making’ could get really comfortable in its beautiful smooth, jade colored ‘home’.
Even when the butterfly makes the choice at the appointed time to come out of the ‘change’ and metamorphosis it has experienced, another change must be embraced so it can become all it was meant to be: it has to wait while the newly formed veins in its wings are inflated, allowing time for them to dry and harden so flight is actually possible and safe for the newly formed butterfly
But what does all this have to do with you, our economy, the bailout saga, and the changes, and upsets that daily bombard us in life or on the news? Well, just about everything if you consider how all of life (everything in the universe, really) is so very similar. Indeed, whether a butterfly in metamorphosis or a human living in the now… Change is ‘What Is’. Truly,
If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies!
Have you ever watched butterflies for any length of time? Have you noticed what they spend most of their day doing?
It may surprise you to learn that the life of a butterfly is very, very similar to every single thing you’ve ever asked life to give you, if you had all the money you wanted, the job of your dreams, and the living space of your choice.
Think about it! After surrendering to change and metamorphosis, butterflies fly around, seeing every beautiful thing they want to see (wild and interesting adventures); they flutter from place to place (viewing beautiful sights and sounds), picking their favorite flowers to feed on (there is always an abundance of beautiful food to eat). In essence, they joyfully do what butterflies do, with extraordinary ease (read: no struggle). They live in the natural flow of nature and grace everyone with their elegance and beauty.
Isn’t that what you really want? Isn’t that what you ask for deep in your heart when you think of your grandest desires? Don’t you want your life to simply flow peacefully, with all you need placed abundantly around for your choosing everyday when you open your eyes? Isn’t that the exact description of what everyone wants; all the abundance and freedom given to a butterfly?
The million dollar question is: “Are you willing to go through the metamorphosis process—rather than clinging to what’s known of your normal everyday life as a caterpillar?”
Ask yourself honestly: “Do I have enough faith, when I can’t yet see the final outcome, to trust that the ‘chrysalis stage of life’ will take me from caterpillar to butterfly intact? Do I fully understand how I can choose my own thoughts as the transformation takes place so I can actually feel good and maybe even accept the process?”
Will you willingly choose to embrace the changes of life with an open mind asking what it is you are to do next and how can you benefit from this new and latest life experience? Do you think a caterpillar (as the only existence it’s ever known disappears forever), hangs around trying to fight the natural flow of becoming all and who they were meant to be?
The point is…
Framing your doubts with better perspectives while life change is taking place, requires ‘Willingness’.
Willingness to go through the motions of life withholding ‘any judgment’ until the entire process is complete. Willingness to accept and embrace the concept that “where you are, is where you are---and that’s okay because where you are, IS where you are and it’s okay because it’s WHERE YOU ARE.” This is absolute acceptance of what is, and when you really think about that, is there any other choice in life than to 'accept what is'?
The good news is there are examples to follow all around you, and they are probably the very people who drive you nuts! You know, the Pollyanna types who make it all look so easy! It’s not that they don’t experience metamorphosis; everyone does at some point or another in life. It is more about how they understand and then accept the true nature of all life. How they understand the process and through present moment thinking, allow what is, to be what is without objection (in other words, they accept what is while focusing on what they want with a detached mindset).
As we are always free to focus or think in any way we please, others make a different choice and choose to fight change every step of the way with doubt, stress and negativity… simply because they are not yet aware of or able to practice the art of allowing through detachment---and it does take practice!.
I think it takes great bravery and a lot of courage for a Caterpillar to willingly choose to embrace change and become a Butterfly, and it may require the same from you and me.
Choose to focus on the outcome you want while remaining in acceptance of what is (as best you can)! Choose to envision how it will feel when the metamorphosis is complete and you are fluttering around living the life you were meant to live…
Finding great perspectives about the journey we call life, expressing your willingness to change, and embracing what comes your way all the while focusing your intentions on what you want, can be wildly joyful—the choice is up to you! And what you think and feel is too!
Joyful in the Journey...
Kelly K. Brown
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