In the Chrysalis of life.

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach.

A cocoon is an imaginary cover you make for yourself, to keep yourself safe.  A cocoon can be a place to cultivate the courage to accept, stop fighting hard, regenerate, replenish and embrace the metamorphosis of life.  Sometimes it is a phase of quiet contemplation of your life’s journey or introspection to have a breather to a beautiful spell of insight into life. They sometimes become a respite for a weary soul and a precious time to cherish the lovely memories.  The cocooning is a challenging one, going through the whole process of metamorphosis because it is the most breathtaking, majestic and awe-inspiring transformation of life. The cocooning is not a thing or place to fear or hide forever, but for bringing a positive transformation to your life. Everyone gets cocooned in life sometime or the other. The change that goes on in a cocoon is not always a pretty one, but the result of it is a very beautiful one.

Even a very positive person sometimes gets cocooned in the day to day challenges of life. It is quite natural to feel low and wanting to disappear from the face of the earth.  It is a temporary phase, because you are confused, sometimes hurt, or angry with yourself.  All those who have been through a trauma, a major life transition, may understand this. As a human being, you do it too, though not physically. It is a psychological metamorphosis that may happen several times in our lives.  You have a lot of transitions from baby to child, child to adolescent and adolescent to adult, and the obvious well-recognized stages of a life cycle of a man.  They may seem rather difficult.  Even after growing up, sometimes your identity is not a fixed one because you change when you get married, become a parent, switch jobs,  change places, get sick and many other responsibilities that never ends till you reach your grave. But it depends on how you take all this. Yes there are moments where you are at your wits end, not knowing what to do, which way to turn or which path to take.  It overpowers you only when you become a victim to that feeling or situation and; that can make you miserable and hopelessly helpless.  Your challenges and sufferings, do not have to cripple you, it can actually help us fly if you can look at it as a part of your growth in life. The most wonderful part of any stress or suffering is the moment you let the situation be as it is, leaving it to nature to take its own course and come out of it......that is the time when you feel that every minute of your worry and suffering was worth all the pain and anguish.

In all the stages of life, however it is, you  who needs to alter your definitions of self, which requires not only small adjustments in way of life and thoughts, but sometimes a full -fledged metamorphosis. Whether the caterpillar is emotionally stressed is a big question, but what needs to be pondered is that for humans it is stressful many a time.  The best way out is to understand the process of change, and keep going.  The metamorphosis also includes catalytic changes like falling in love, breaking up, getting or losing jobs, having children and emptying the nest. Each phase needs to be dealt with carefully, though it is  a very difficult and traumatic phase. It never helps to sulk or brood over it.  You need to cocoon by taking care of yourself and not  grieving or going into sympathy seeking and self pity, .  It is frustrating and the least you can do is to relax,control and trust the process with a will to get out of it.  You will cycle through all sorts of denial, anger, sorrow or acceptance that you have to experience and come out of it just as a caterpillar painfully comes out as a beautiful butterfly.

It is really a great thing to contemplate on the concept of cocooning through the major transitions of life. It does help us to grow with a deeper insight to life.  Most of us spend our life mindlessly crawling like caterpillars. Then lot of things interrupts our crawl, making us suddenly look beyond our horizons and long to become a butterfly. What we often forget is the painful transition from a caterpillar to a butterfly. In fact we avoid that to a ‘feel good’ attitude. But the fact of the matter is that cocooning is the secret of healing in a positive way.  It teaches us a lot, if you look at the depth of that transition. Looking at it in a positive way, the caterpillar spends most of its time wandering aimlessly. When the time comes to its becoming an adult, it wanders away to a sheltered, safe place and pupates or transforms into an adult. During this metamorphosis, its body is broken down and goes through a lot of physical changes; the cocooning then turns into a safe place for all its painful changes which makes it a beautiful butterfly.  The transition that takes place gives us a deeper insight that we may not always be in a comfort zone and that we can really tackle all challenges without fear and in a positive way.

Each one of us has a choice, everyday; to go right or left, straight or ahead, backwards, crawl or soar towards the sky, leading us to different destinations.  You can be successful or defeated in life. You can strengthen your wings; gather courage and your inner strength to continue the journey of life that we are on.  It is your attitude towards life that governs you. It is a life of accepting changes in a gentle way, with patience.  If you don’t even try to overcome the turbulence that rocks your life, then you will be sucked deeply to be a victim of your circumstances and perhaps never find an escape from it. Sometimes the struggles are an important part of life, because if you were to go through life without any obstacles, you would not be strong nor been able to fly high with strength and enthusiasm.  Just when the caterpillar thought that world was over, it became a butterfly.  So when you get weighed down in life with all the stress, suffering, challenges or obstacles, think of it as  a cocoon stage to emerge out of it painfully with a positive attitude and more strength that makes you beautiful, unique and different from others.

We all have times when life feels hard, when we are frustrated and tired and just want to hide away. If that’s you right now, don’t worry- every caterpillar has to rest to become a butterfly and you'll soon find your wings again.  Anna Taylor.