It’s been several weeks now since we have bid farewell to our former lives. Even our customary ways of measuring time seem to have fallen away as the infrastructure, the bones, that once created a sense of certainty and routine have been pulled right out from underneath us. Many of us are undergoing an involuntary stripping away of our identities, our former, or perhaps false selves. Each moment, each breath really, feels like an expansion or contraction; growing pains I guess you could say… emotional and spiritual ones.
During this metamorphosis I have felt the tear in the weather-worn fabric of yesterday, which to a greater degree has been accompanied and colored by significant struggle and grief. I’ve been brought to my knees again and again feeling like I can’t bear one more second of this and then somehow, I do. We are all shedding old skin, we can’t afford to stay small anymore; the undercurrent of desire for growth is speaking more loudly now than ever and we have no other choice but to listen. Outdated paradigms have tied us up and held us back for far too long and this precious time in our isolation has begged us to re-examine and update these antiquated beliefs.
And the truth is there’s a part of me, and a little or a lot in all of us, that would rather stay small. The mere thought alone of rising to the occasion, to be accountable to and for ourselves, at times, can feel downright terrifying. This transition is testing the strength of our Spirit, not the force of our will. And once we are in the chrysalis, we perhaps haven’t emerged yet as the butterfly, but there’s no way we will ever be that caterpillar again. As we make our descent into the Soul and begin peeling back the outdated layers of our former or false selves, we are being called to withstand the turbulent weather of this tremendous initiation.
We emerge more beautiful than ever not because we forced our way through, but rather we withstood the transformative heat from the fire which burned up everything we are not. And once we have made it to the other side we can be thankful for the experience, not only because we see ourselves more clearly, but because we then soar freely in the newfound strength of our Spirit.
-Chrissy Leake
