The butterfly’s cocoon
by Sandra Weis
Did you ever wake up asking yourself what happened to the person you used to be?
You’re missing yourself? The person you thought you were? The person that you could most identify with?
All of the sudden you realize, too much time has passed, too many events have shaped a new you.
Do you want to be that new you?
I guess, since you’re asking, you ought to find the answers. Believe me, it’s not as difficult as it may seem.
It takes a lot of courage to dig deep, to open up some wounds, that you thought you had already meticulously mended;
it takes courage to knock on some doors, that you believed had forever closed for you;
it takes courage to comprehend that the person you are missing the most, is none of your ex-boyfriends, none of the friends that have left the story that constitutes your life;
the person you are missing the most, is YOU.
You are the only one to fill the void you are sensing inside of your soul. The people that have surrounded you during the time you were able to identify with yourself the most, to love yourself the most, to be at ease with yourself the most, to be satisfied with the way you were developing and the person that you were becoming; they were factors that may or may not have contributed to this positive outcome that was your ideal version of yourself.
Mind you, be it cities, people, a job, a school, an educational institution, that you believe to be missing and particularly capable of filling the void you are experiencing; all of these are merely factors reminding you of the better version you used to be in this deliberate surrounding.
It’s not these factors that need to be reintroduced to your life to make it feel whole again.
You ought to realize that the construction work is to be done not on the surface. You do not need no scaffolding or additional decoration added to the ornamentation of the exterior appearance of your skyscraper.
You just need to fix the foundation. The fundament is not broken. It may be a little bit rusty, causing the upper floors of your skyscraper to shake a little when exposed to rough windy weather. Although it may have been a little shaky and unstable at times, your fundament is still solid, just in need of some new columns for support.
Essential is, that the columns you’re adding correspond to the interior design of your skyscraper, your soul.
Aristotle stated
Happiness is the actualization of our potential in activities of moral and intellectual virtue. Happiness is human flourishing – not happy feelings
If we translated that into nowadays jargon:
Rediscover your talents.
It’s crucial for human beings to realize their potential, to make use of the potential they have, otherwise it will gradually rust, not being in use. It will be urged into oblivion, blended into the comfort zone one has created just like cement into the walls. After some time, it will have blended in so well, you won’t recognize it anymore.
Learn to flourish, learn to experience happiness again, doing what you are best at, doing what makes you feel fulfilled. Once you will have started rediscovering yourself in an activity, job or hobby making you use your potential, other factors that may have contributed to your flourishing in life before, will naturally find their way back and new ones will follow, reinventing the new version of YOU.
Change is scary. We like to remain in our comfort-zones that we have so meticulously established and we like for our relationships that we have tried to protect and maintain with the utmost care, to persist endlessly.
It’s about courage, even if they do not persist, even if you are forced to leave your comfort zone. Why would you perceive of it as something negative? It may be felt as such in the beginning; it may be frightening in the beginning.
The beauty lies in the healing power of time and the way you choose to make use of it - it’s courageous to rebuild something from the ground - it’s courageous to mend or try to fix something you thought was unfixable.
Now imagine, how precious the reward will feel, when you actually manage to do exactly that - imagine how extremely proud you will feel, if the “something” you were about to fix and thought of as being unfixable was the YOU – but you did it, you’ve managed.
Isn’t it beautiful that we are like butterflies, only that we’re supernatural butterflies possessing the superpower to hatch out of our cocoons various times?
Whilst it may be hurtful, physically and mentally wearisome to burst through the walls of the cocoon, the reward of witnessing the beauty that may lie behind these walls will be priceless. You may be surprised at all the wonders, freedom and opportunities lying there once you hatch out of your cocoon, experiencing your own rebirth.