I've been thinking about transformations lately. I've been feeling a lot like I'm in a chrysalis stage - and I've been really afraid. I like the caterpillar stage, with its successions of instars: grow, split skin, grow some more. Being a butterfly seems so totally foreign - too different, too much of a drastic change. I know how to be a caterpillar. I don't know how to be a butterfly. What if I hate it?
I remind myself that being a butterfly is as much programmed into the DNA as being a caterpillar is. The caterpillar simply has to trust and move along into the next phase.
A very important part of moving on is to release what no longer serves. The caterpillar grows and then leaves the old skin behind to grow into the new one. Its final skin is the chrysalis, which it also leaves behind.
We release what no longer serves us to make room for what we need next, what lights us up, what brings us closer to our purpose.
We let go so we have room for what's coming.
Last week as part of my solstice ritual, I made a list of things I needed to release. Feelings, thought patterns, things, relationships. I put it all on there.
I took the things to Goodwill. I wrote the feelings, thoughts and relationships on little pieces of paper and then burned them. Not with a dramatic flourish, but quietly - thanking them for their service and then watching as they turned to ash and smoke and drifted away. [And then, truth be told, I dissolved that ash in water and made sure it was good and gone.]
It. Felt. Awesome. Just remembering it now makes my shoulders feel lighter. I can breathe deeper without that load of junk to carry.
What do you need to release? I invite you to write it down or say it out loud. Acknowledge it and begin the process of lightening your load.
Sending you so much love!
I'd like to invite you to join our Best Self facebook group where we can talk freely about becoming our best selves - and all the messy work that entails. In addition, I have another group, The Well Balanced Artist, for creatives of all kinds and in all stages of their creative lives, who are trying to balance their art, business and personal lives.
