Catalytic events come when they will, and we find ourselves once more riding the Change Cycle. We’re not in charge of the timing, try as we might to control the uncontrollable. Whee, anyone?
When we were younger, catalytic events were more often positive – graduations, marriages, parenthood. Catalytic events were largely results of choices we made.
As we age, the events that push us onto the wheel are more often unchosen by us – kids off to college, death of a loved one, a serious illness. These catalytic events feel more like grief and loss.
This is okay. This is how it’s supposed to be. Resistance is futile. Resistance to what is only causes suffering. Painful events are holy and full of grace, when we allow them to be.
A common metaphor for the cycle of change, part and parcel of the Earthling deal, is metamorphosis. In metamorphosis, a caterpillar dissolves in her chrysalis, becomes goo, and eventually emerges as a butterfly.
The caterpillar has no say in the timing. And she must dissolve completely for her cells to reform as a butterfly. These two things are important.
As humans, we have the capacity to resist the chrysalis. This is never a good idea. When your chrysalis calls, it’s best to give in and dissolve. Resistance is futile. All resistance will get you is a gnarly beat-up caterpillar slogging through winter snows, shaking its withering head and muttering under its breath in disgust, eventually freezing to death. Not pretty.
I’m having surprise surgery next week to rehabilitate my right thumb. (Ligament Reconstruction and Tendon Interposition, for you medical nerds.) My right hand will be out of commission for a month or so. Surgery day, September 21, is also the day I outlive my mom – a day I’ve been aware of for a while now. Evidently, to mark the occasion, I’ll be getting my hand retooled for the next forty years, forty more than she had. Not what I would have chosen, and yet it works somehow.
I’m attempting to accept this enforced rest as a gift, a retreat, chrysalis time. I’ll do my best to be graceful about it and be a happy patient, but I’m finding out just how much I resist rest. Who will I be if I’m not working? Will I deserve to take up space if I’m not productive? Is healing really necessary? Sheesh.
This newsletter and our Community Conversations will be on hiatus until I can work a keyboard and a mouse again. This means our September 30 Community Convo is cancelled.
I’ll be back, as soon as I’m back up and running, with updates from the Chrysalis.
PS. Many of you are fans of Glennon Doyle’s Untamed. Did you know Glennon and her sister Amanda host a fabulous podcast, We Can Do Hard Things? I recommend it so highly, and will be catching up on episodes while I’m resting in my chrysalis. (Thanks to my daughter for urging me to listen.)
TL,DR: We humans, as members of an always-changing Universe, are subject to repeated cycles of death and rebirth. COVID-19 has pushed us into change. Change follows a predictable pattern. Understanding this pattern helps us ride the “Change Cycle” with more ease and better results. The first phase of the Change Cycle as described by Martha Beck is Square One, characterized by death and rebirth. Your job right now is to let your old pre-Coronavirus identity dissolve. This will probably feel painful and scary, and the pain is made worse by resistance. Care for yourself and others as though you’re in active grief, because you are. We are held in Love as we do this holy work.
The Change Cycle is a foundational component of Wayfinder
Life Coach Training. I think it’s a necessary archetypal pattern to understand,
especially during times of transition. And boy, howdy, are we in a time of
transition right now!
Everything in the Universe changes. Every single thing. We
humans are members of the Universe. So change is built into our DNA, however
much we try to deny or resist it. The Change Cycle, as taught by Martha Beck,
is initiated by a catalytic event and has four phases.
Here’s a short overview, followed by a deeper dive into
Square One.
The Change Cycle: Martha uses the metaphor of a butterfly when describing the Change Cycle.* Imagine a caterpillar melting down in its chrysalis. That’s Square One, the phase of death and rebirth. Square Two, the phase of dreaming and scheming, is when the former caterpillar, now “caterpillar soup,” begins to reform and coalesce as a new creation – a butterfly. Square Three is a Hero’s Journey, when the new butterfly does the hard work of emerging from the chrysalis. This is arduous work for the butterfly, and it can’t be short-circuited. Finally, our caterpillar, after going through a lot of acceptance and hard work, flies freely as a butterfly through Square Four! Square Four, because everything in the Universe is always changing, doesn’t last forever. Along comes another catalytic event, and bam! On to the next Square One! Every time you ride this cycle, you get bigger and wiser and more yourself. Unlike our caterpillar, humans ride the change cycle over and over again until we die, unless we resist it.
Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star, p. 245
Caterpillars naturally enter their metamorphosis. Human
beings usually need something to push us into change and transformation,
because most of us resist. The catalytic event that pushes us into the Change Cycle
may be something we longed for and planned for, like getting married or having
a baby. Or it may be something we don’t want and didn’t plan for, like
COVID-19.
Deeper into Square One: My friends, we are in a global Square One. This global lockdown accompanied by instant internet news is unprecedented. Coronavirus has forever altered our world. Remember that Square One is characterized by death of old identities. This pandemic has destroyed our identities as people who get to go where we want, do what we want, and control our own destinies.
Square One is painful, and it cannot be rushed. This square is overflowing with grief. Just like your grief when a parent or a spouse or a dear friend dies, this grief simply must have its way with you, and the best course of action is to accept it. As Tara Brach and other Buddhist teachers often say, “Pain x resistance = suffering. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”
When my mom died, I felt like my world had altered
irrevocably. My life had slipped off the rails. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel
anything but pain again – joy and happiness seemed like they had fled and would
never return. I know you’ve felt this grief, too. You’ve known the deep sadness
of missing someone or something so much you’re afraid you’ll never recover.
The only thing to do when you’re grieving is to grieve. Grief can’t be rushed. It can’t be sidestepped. The dissolution of Square One simply has to happen. Just as the caterpillar turns to caterpillar soup, we become “person soup.” We have to let our former identities dissolve when the new identities aren’t yet clear. The imago cells that coalesce to form the new creation will only find each other when the old creation is completely fluid. Completely disaggregated.
This is how this has to go. Death and rebirth is how our
world works. It’s the story of winter’s death and the rebirth of spring. It’s sunset
and darkness preceding sunrise and a glorious new day. It’s a waning moon
followed by a waxing moon becoming full and illuminating the night. This is how
this has to go. It’s okay. You’re okay. Let go. Let death have its way with
you.
The only way to come out on the other side of this process a realer, bigger, more present and authentic you is to let the Change Cycle have its way.
These days, just like after my mom died, I’m moving more
slowly. I’m tired and inefficient. I’m forgetful and a little fuzzy around the
edges. I’m craving several hours each day just to be with this new reality. I’m
praying, walking, moving my body with love, sitting in meditation, while
working harder than I ever have before. I’m being really gentle with myself –
creating a cocoon for this metamorphosis. I suggest you do the same. Treat
yourself as though you’re in active mourning, because you are. Life as you knew
it, before the pandemic, is gone. It will never be like it was. Grieve the
loss. Give yourself all the time you need.
If you don’t take all the time you need, if you push through
or avoid or try to step off the cycle, you delay rebirth. I know this to be
true. After my mom died and after other catalytic events in my life, before I
knew about how change works, I resisted, sometimes for years. Resisting the pain
caused me to suffer and stay stuck, completely unnecessariy.
How can you tell you’re resisting the death of Square One? Some classic symptoms of resistance are keeping busy all the time, indulging in addictions, numbing, dissociating, avoiding being in your body, obsessing and worrying, and saying things like “Why me?” and “This shouldn’t be happening.”
We’re supposed to feel like toddlers in Square One, not knowing what the hell is going on half the time, and needing lots of naps. If you’re completely bumfuzzled and often tired, you’re doing it right.
If you take all the time you need to dissolve, to grieve,
to become “person soup,” one day you’ll feel a lightening of that load, and
maybe just a glimmer of hope. You’ll catch a flash of light in the distance. That’s
a sign that you’re moving onto the threshold of rebirth. Those holy imago cells
swimming inside you are beginning to find each other and coalesce. A new you is
beginning to form. And just like the caterpillar, your chrysalis will have done
its work. You will be ready to do the hard work of emerging and flying. And we
will be amazed by your beauty!
The Change Cycle is a holy cycle. Although you may not feel like it, although you’re hurting, know you’re held in Love as do this holy work. You will be okay. You will emerge from this experience – COVID 19 or any other catalytic event – as a new creation, and you will be okay.
Contact me if you’d like to delve into this further. I’d love to talk. Consultations are offered free of charge and obligation.
We’ve domesticated resurrection. We’ve tamed its wildness.
We’ve turned resurrection into cute, fluffy sweetness. Picture the typical Easter
symbols – frolicking lambs, fluffy bunnies, downy chicks, fluttering butterflies,
waving daffodils.
But what if the green blade riseth as a knife?
Resurrection is no gentle thing.
Metamorphosis is inherently destructive. Egg shells shatter
as the chick hatches. The caterpillar’s destruction is necessary for the
butterfly’s existence.
Beloved, I am sick to death of meekness. Of pleasingness. Of niceness. I crave clarity and focus. I want to be a sharp-edged blade forged in my life’s fire.
Ask yourself: What must die for life to be freed?
What if, on your journey of rebecoming, you have uncovered
a warrior within? What then?
Will you embrace this inner warrior, or will you command her to drop her sword and spear? Will you nurture your inner insurrectionist? Will you feed her and clothe her? Or will you send her away hungry and alone?
Will you dare to speak your heart’s desire?
Will you dare to be a weapon in your own hands?
Will you dare to trust your aim?
May we whet and wield our strength. May we see clearly and give voice to truth. May we defend the defenseless. May we walk away from labels and roles that cage us. May we excise from our lives anyone who wants us small
and afraid.
May we be faithful to ourselves and each other – our comadres, companions, fellow warriors on
the Way.
Embrace conflict as a whetstone that sharpens and hones
you.
Trust yourself to throw your spear. Trust yourself to
know which suckers need to be pruned so the tree can thrive. Trust yourself to see
what needs to be done, and do it.
Most of all, trust the deep Love in whom you live and
move and have your being. Remain rooted in her. Live in and from her.
Nurture. And destroy. Both are holy. Both are required
for resurrection.
The waiting part of transformation is HARD, at least for me. I want to just do the change, and do it quick. Unfortunately, that’s just not how transformation works. Unlike our get ‘er done culture, what happens in that chrysalis can’t be rushed. (See this previous post for more about change, transformation, and the difference between them. Today’s post goes deeper into #5, about the predictable pattern of change.)
My hypothesis is that the obligatory waiting phase is why I resist necessary transformations. I hate that in-between thing so much. (And if I haven’t done the grieving I need to do with any change, transformation pretty much stops.) All those messy feelings, when we just want to feel bright and shiny and good at life, right?
I’ve been finding these words helpful when I feel myself resisting the necessary waiting phase of transformation. It’s an excerpt from John O’Donohue’s blessing “For the Interim Time.”
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might become free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new,
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
I love that the poet speaks of enduring faithfully. I love that he speaks of loosening roots and becoming free, and how he acknowledges that it’s a difficult and slow process to become new. Mostly I love that he describes the interim time as a time when our minds are being transfigured.
Stay present here and now, in your body. Spend time in nature, and pay attention to how this amazing Creation in which we are embedded actually works. A flower blossoms when it’s ready, and not a minute before. Hold your confidence. Allow your roots to loosen. Faithfully endure and allow your mind to be transfigured. You are becoming new, which is a holy enterprise.
Be faithful to your metamorphosis.
if you’d like to explore how I can help you navigate change and transformation, I offer a free 60-minute consultation. Fill out this form and we’ll set up a time.
I’m 59 years old. Maybe I’m just a slow learner, and everyone else knows this stuff already. But, just in case, here are seven things I’ve recently learned about change that I wish I’d known fifty years ago
1. Change is normal.
Childhood is not an assembly line from which we emerge ready to roll at 21 years old. I know. This seems obvious, right? But this mechanistic model of human development pervades our culture. The idea that we should have our shit together and our ducks in a row by our early twenties is pervasive and harmful and everywhere. In this model, change feels like brokenness rather than aliveness. And women, because our bodies change more way than men’s, pay a steeper price.
Change is a big deal, and it can rock our world. We need to find ways to support and help ourselves through it, rather than beating ourselves up when we don’t navigate it smoothly.
We were not taught, most of us, how to do this.
Change is encoded into the DNA of the world. Even nonliving Earthly entities are constantly changing. Planets circle. Tides go in and out. Water cycles. Rocks become dirt.
2. Every change is loss.
Every change is a death and rebirth. Even the happy changes involve loss. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” sing Semisonic in “Closing Time.” In this season of graduations and weddings, let’s acknowledge that even changes we’ve longed for and dreamed of require the death of something. Maybe it’s not much of anything, but there’s always something we leave behind that we value.
3. Change does not equal transformation.
Change is inevitable, but transformation is optional. And it’s transformation that we need to undergo in order to move forward. We need to acknowledge, and grieve, the death and loss inherent in any change so we can make room for new life. Yes, again, even the happy changes. (See William Bridges’ Transitions for a lot more on this topic. What he calls “transition” I’m labeling “transformation.”)
We can opt out of transformation, though. We can just let our physical realities shift while refusing to acknowledge and deal with the grief inherent in change. This refusal will bite us in the butt, eventually. Refusing to consciously transform, even when a change is unwanted, will leave us with a burden of bitterness, regret, and stuckness that will eventually require attention.
4. Change has resonance.
We tend to do change the same way over and over, unless we bring our patterns to conscious awareness. This is fine if we’re ninja change masters and we handle transformation with grace and ease.
The first big change I remember is when my family fell apart. My dad’s drinking and my parents’ fighting; violence in the house; my dad moving out followed by divorce; my big brother going to live with my dad; losing our house in the woods, our horses, and our dog – all from 6th to 8th grade. I felt completely out of control, because I was. So I learned that I wasn’t in charge of my life. I learned to just close my eyes, keep my head down, and hang on, because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about any of it.
Since then, I’ve left multiple homes and jobs I loved because my husband was pursuing his career. I did this willingly. I behaved as though I didn’t have a choice, and I didn’t thoroughly grieve those losses. I didn’t consciously refuse to transform, I just didn’t know any better.
5. Change has a predictable pattern.
A common metaphor for this pattern is a butterfly’s life cycle. It’s a really good metaphor.
First, the caterpillar has no choice. She simply runs out of steam and has to stop. Then she creates a chrysalis for herself, inside which she COMPLETELY MELTS DOWN. Next, she has to wait, be goo, and let the imaginal cells do their work of remaking her. This stage cannot be rushed, for butterflies or for people. Because we’re conscious beings, we’re aware of how uncomfortable and counter-cultural this waiting is. It’s an unknown territory, not-this-anymore-but-not-yet-that, and we often panic. Rushing is a mistake. This is where faith comes in. Finally, when it’s time and the work of the chrysalis is done, we are reborn.
This pattern of transformation is everywhere.
6. Change is cycles within cycles.
Change isn’t linear. See number one. We will almost certainly be in the dying phase of one cycle and be feeling reborn in another area of our lives. For example, I’m coming to terms with being almost sixty, entering the final decades of my life. I’m grieving the loss of my young body and the physical resilience I’ve taken for granted. At the same time, I’m experiencing a profound rebirth of purpose as I commit to my life coaching practice and to writing.
Cell turnover, cell death and rebirth, is going on at a furious clip within my aging body, just as the day cycles within the moon cycles within the cycles of the seasons, all within the context of Earth’s life and death, which is in turn embedded in a Universe with a beginning and an end.
If you believe there’s solid ground somewhere and all you have to do is find it, good luck with that.
7. We’re never done.
Simple as that. We’re never done changing, not until we die. Not even after we die, probably, because the atoms and molecules that made up US are entangled with each other even after our bodies decompose and return to Earth. They are reborn as something or someone else, which is always part of us in some mysterious way. So even after we die, we continue as part of the dance.
And isn’t that wonderful?
If you’d like to continue the conversation, please leave a comment below. If you’re interested in coaching, I offer a free one-hour consultation. Follow this link for details!
You say you’re waiting for direct orders from an irrefutable voice.
A voice from Heaven: This is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to her.
An ancient ritual, laden with pomp and circumstance- Proper form and order.
An ordination with weighty words and codified gestures, Performed by men wearing heavy gowns and rings of gold, Who seal decrees with wax.
You on your knees On the floor of a long narrow dusty hall Ruled by straight lines.
My love, that’s not how this works.
My ordination comes through rock and stars.
This holiness is swimming in the mighty river welling up in you that will not be dammed.
This holiness strips your old tough too-small skin from your body with gentle-edged hands you’ve forgotten you had.
This holiness is living in new thin porous skin permeable to excruciating joy.
I consecrated you with blood and salt water at your birth. I bestow upon you daily ordinations. I tell you of your belonging every moment.
Hear my voice in the pine wind, songs of birds and frogs, and laughter. Feel my hand as butterflies and bees, sun on skin, feet in cold river. See me in seasons’ spiral, cycles of day and night, everyday dying and rising.
Your sweat and tears taste like ocean.
You know my wordless urge and tug in a baby’s cry and the need of a friend.Or a stranger.
Here’s your permission: Daughter, you are here.
You’re flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. Breath of my breath. Blood of my blood.
Today is the Winter Solstice, Midwinter’s Day, the longest night of the year. At 3:03 pm here in Oregon the sun will reach its lowest point.
If you live in the northern hemisphere, I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s really dark these days. Dark and cold. Dark and cold and sometimes icy. And cloudy. And windy and snowy. Did I say cold? And dark.
Isn’t winter lovely? I mean that sincerely. Our days are short, our nights are long, and we are immersed in darkness.
Darkness is necessary for life and light. Seeds germinate in the dark. Babies gestate in the dark. Restorative sleep happens in the dark. The earth rests in the dark — caterpillars are resting, waiting to become butterflies. Leaf buds are resting, waiting to unfurl. Animals are resting, waiting for the sun’s return and the resumption of their forest revels.
Some ways to mark the Solstice and the turning of the year:
Give yourself the gift of time. Sit in the dark. Light a candle and simply be present to darkness.
Create a poem or piece of art honoring darkness and your human connection to this gift.
Choose a word or theme for 2015. The dark is the perfect place to do this. Some resources: Abbey of the Arts “Give me a word” is a series of twelve short meditations to help you dig deep and surface your word for 2015. Coach Anna Kunnecke’s blog on this topic looks at words from a different perspective.
The sun begins its slow rise now. Soon the days will be noticeably longer and the dark will dissipate. Let’s celebrate darkness, friends!
I’d love to hear about your word for 2015, and how you celebrate darkness, in the comments. More about words next week in this space.
