For many years now I have loved sharing this poem with my clients who are working with me and going through the toughest challenges in their life right now. “I can’t see myself getting through this, it is so painful Suzy!” They go on to say….”I have reached out to you because I can’t seem to want to talk to anyone right now, I just want to be on my own, but even that is too difficult. I don’t know what to do with myself! Am I ever going to feel ok again.
And I say…..You are a butterfly, and yes time and love and support and doing whatever you need to right now, will get you through this pain and suffering that feels so unbearable. They do feel somewhat comforted by this.
When we go ‘through’ this, we remember the struggle of the butterfly and its transformational journey from the caterpillar stage. Human beings have the strength, resilience and power to do the same.
“Every adversity brings with it the seed of a greater or equal benefit” – Napoleon Hill.
So here’s my sharing to you, of this incredibly powerful poem that I love so very much. I am unable to find who wrote this – so please let me know if you see it anywhere and I will add the credits to it.
THE CHRYSALIS
One day a young boy was watching a chrysalis, realising that the butterfly was trying to emerge. It twisted this was and that and the boy pitied the struggle the insect was having to get out of its shell.
He decided to help it and ran to get some scissors. Carefully he enlarged the hole in the bottom of the chrysalis and sat back with pleasure to watch the butterfly as it easily slipped out of the surrounding walls. His pleasure turned to dismay as he saw that the butterfly was deformed and sticky – it could not fly and soon died.
When he asked someone who was an expert on Butterflies, it was explained to him that the struggle that the butterfly went through, to emerge from the chrysalis, was very important. In the struggle he became strong, and increased his ability to live. Cumbersome parts of his body were whittled away in the process so that the butterfly, at the end of the struggle, would be beautiful, with wings strong enough to carry it wherever it chose to fly” – (Anon)
So…….the question is, can we help the caterpillar in some way when we see it struggle and wriggle through its journey out – I think we can. But we do need to be Experts to do it it. I always believed we couldn’t and shouldn’t interfere but then I saw this post today by Sciencing How To Help a Butterfly Out of A Cocoon and it changed my mind. Thank you Sciencing! You made my day!
Am I an Expert? I don’t really know, but I do have some learned skills at helping people through some difficult times and I have been through the toughest emotional challenges myself. I lost both my parents and my beloved grandmother within a period of 18 months before I was adopted by my aunt at the age of 11 and a half and moved to another country to start a new life with a new family. I not only survived but I thrived because someone ‘helped’ me through it. My beautiful aunt who became my beloved mother.
If you have a transformational experience like this please share with us.