Metamorphosis

Hello to all you beautiful souls,

I want to thank you for visiting this website and I pray that you are inspired and blessed by the information. For the last several months I have been thinking about the metamorphosis process and how it is a comparison f or our life and healing process. Please join me to explore this beautiful healing metamorphosis journey together.

What is the meaning of Metamorphosis?

• A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.
• A noticeable change in character, appearance, function, or condition.
• Unfolding, changing, to transform, to open up.

Wow! What an encouraging and inspiring word is “Metamorphosis!” I find these definitions of this word to be so encouraging and hopeful to our own lives. It signifies to me that we can transition from a person with emotional and physical challenges and feelings like we’re barely living our lives, to a healthier and more vibrant being that exudes health, vibrancy, and joy, and fully embracing and living our lives to the fullest. Our transformation, wherever we are in life, is a journey. This journey of our life is a learning experience full of growth and potential.

This unfolding or metamorphic process makes me immediately think of a butterfly that has just hatched from its chrysalis. She’s flapping her wings and getting ready to fly. Once she is flying, she soars and the places and potentials for her life are full of endless possibilities.

When my children were young we would hunt for caterpillars on herbs and plants from the garden. We would place them into a large glass jar with some cheesecloth at the top for them to breathe. My children would find and place some herbs, grass, water, and a large stick for them to climb and spin their chrysalis from. These little caterpillars were squiggly, moved slow, and would crawl around trying to find nourishment. The little creatures weren’t very colorful or always very attractive but we knew what was coming, if we had enough patience to wait for them to transform. We would excitedly watch each process from caterpillar, chrysalis, and eventually a beautiful and colorful butterfly.

After a week or two, the caterpillar would spin its chrysalis. This process seemed like it took forever, especially to little children who were watching it day and night! The chrysalis appeared very dormant and sometimes we would even question whether it died in that little dried, brown sac.

The chrysalis process is a very crucial period to this little creature’s life process. It is a resting and transitional time of its life cycle, but also a time when most of the metamorphic action is happening. The little life inside the chrysalis sac is being thrown and spun around and rapidly changing its form. It is being reshaped and rewoven in this dark place. Inside this sac, the old body parts of the caterpillar are undergoing an extraordinary transformation. This transformation develops into a new creation that will unfold and spring forth! The tissues, limbs, and organs of a caterpillar have all been reshaped and transformed by the time the chrysalis stage is completed.

You can imagine the excitement and joy from all of us when that butterfly started emerging from its chrysalis! What a beautiful and rewarding gift this process is to watch! All the waiting and hoping has finally arrived!

The final and most exciting stage of a butterfly’s life cycle has now emerged. When the butterfly first breaks through from its chrysalis, her wings are wet, soft, and folded against her body. This is because the butterfly had to fit all of its new parts inside of the chrysalis. As soon as the new caterpillar has gotten used to its new body, the blood starts fully pumping into its wings. The wings start flapping and moving. After the wings are fully working, the butterfly starts to fly and it soars into the sky with a new freedom into the new journey ahead!

It was a little difficult to let those beautiful butterflies fly away after we had watched over their growth process for so many weeks! This is sometimes the process when we’re ready to spread our wings and fly as well. We might need to let go of some things that could hold us back from our full growth and potential. But when our time comes to fly and soar, this letting go process is meant to strengthen and shape us for our true beautiful journey ahead. We shed the old layers that once held us back from our hatching process and gain wings instead.

I find that this metamorphosis process of a butterfly is so closely related to our story and life journey. We all go through stages of life, some good, and some feel like they’re not so good. All of these stages we go through are necessary for our transformation and healing. Each stage of our journey is a learning process and becomes part of our unique story.

The caterpillar stage can be compared to a slow or a sluggish state in our life. We might be unaware of our potential but yet we have a yearning or we are searching for who we truly are meant to be. Our heart and soul is crying out to be heard and understood. There is a knowing or deep feeling within us that we are all placed on this earth for a divine purpose but we are struggling and crawling through life. Some of the reasons we are crawling can come in many forms, such as: incorrect eating, unhealthy sleep habits, being stressed all the time, feeling exhausted, feeling overwhelmed, feeling defeated, and having a wall of protection around our hearts. Of course, I could write hundreds of reasons why we may be in the caterpillar stage, and it comes in many different forms for each of us, but no matter what form or reason, all of our spirits are yearning to emerge from the darkness and be fully transformed and illuminated.

The chrysalis stage or process can be compared to a transitional stage where we finally start waking up and everything inside of us starts changing and healing. This process can be painful and uncomfortable, physically and emotionally. It is a shedding of the old cells and tissues, toxic thoughts and beliefs, and sluggish dormancy within our being that is causing illness, complacency, and slow destruction. The chrysalis stage is actually a biological process where heat is given off as the old matter and dormant energy releases and transforms into an alive and vibrant structure. Our energy or vibration is transforming from darkness to light.

As we start eating healthy foods, cleansing old and stagnant debris from the body and mind, breathing more deeply, living cleaner, creating a clear and calm mind, our body and spirit becomes transformed and a reawakening experience takes place.

What was old is washed away and a rebirth of new potential is ahead. The memories and scars are still there from the past, but they do not define you anymore. Those scars make you unique and special because of what you’ve gone through and endured. Your wounds have made you even more beautiful and colorful than before. God’s light is shining through your soul! I think of the quote by Rumi (a famous Persian poet) with our life’s metamorphic journey: “The wound is the place where the light enters.”

How true! Our difficulties and adversities in life are there to teach us valuable information, redefine our character, and help us to grow and break out of our own chrysalis. Our unique wounds make us extraordinary and the light illuminates and shines the brightest in those spots of our brokenness, humility, and vulnerability.

One of my favorite Bible verses is from Isaiah 61:3: “To all who mourn, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor.”

Beauty for ashes…I love this verse! All of the pain, stagnancy, illness, “ashes”, will be turned into beauty. We just need to take the steps to outgrow our old habits and thoughts that are keeping us stuck and replace them with a lifestyle of healing, tranquility, and restoration.

God didn’t create us to crawl and to stay in our cocoons and writhe and flounder around. He made us to soar! This past Mother’s Day, my daughter Maddie gave me a little statue of a lady holding a bird and on the bird it says “Soar!” What a perfect time in my own life for her to give that gift to me. It sits right beside my bed, and every morning when I wake up I see that sweet sight that reminds me this is another new day to soar! Every new day is a chance to soar above life’s problems and hardships and to rise and fly above it all with a new determination to live this new day to its fullest.

Let’s trade in our caterpillar body for butterfly wings! We all have a choice in life of which direction or path to take on our own healing journey. As we each walk on our own beautiful healing journey, our butterfly transformation is taking place. Inside all of us is that butterfly!

When this process is emerging we start springing forth out of our old shell and start blooming and unfolding into our new layers that are full of beauty, depth, new life, a new sense of creativeness, and a strength that we never realized we had within us. We are the butterfly…Beautiful, Colorful, and Unique. We have transitioned into our true self, destiny, and divine purpose - Metamorphosis!

“Everyone dies, not everyone really lives.” William Wallace

May your journey be blessed and beautiful!

With much warmth and gratitude,