It’s an Inside Job

Each person has their own journey, their own motivation, their own stumbling blocks and fears, and their own thoughts and reasons why they got here and why they do what they do.

If you are anything like me, I can get caught up in what is right or wrong so much, that I forget that it is an individual journey and there IS no right or wrong; and perhaps, part of the reason that we face these health and potential life threatening circumstances that obesity leads to is that we do not validate that there is no right or wrong answers.  I know that I have done that, sometimes on a daily basis.

Turning to nature can give me answers when I sit quiet and observe.  A quote by Trina Paulus is a good example:

How does one become a butterfly? She asked pensively. 

You must WANT to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar. 

I am seeing the truth in that.  If I ask myself, and answer honestly, yes.. I want to become a butterfly.  Next step though, is to ask why.  Is it based on the fact that of what I think caterpillars and butterflies are.  Is it that caterpillars are boring, plain, sometimes even ugly or creepy; while butterflies are beautiful, filled with freedom while fluttering around.  Think about your own thoughts.

Does a caterpillar make you smile as much as a butterfly? Is it that you are searching for beauty and admiration? Is it that you are looking to feel better about yourself when you can see in the light that you are beautiful?

But the statement was:  when you want to fly.

Nothing in there was mentioned about the beauty, the freedom or the positive feelings of being a butterfly. It is about wanting to fly.  That can be different. All of what we attach to a statement, a feeling, comes from our own thoughts, our own validation or invalidation, of what we think and say of ourselves. It is based on past experiences and what we have chosen as techniques and behaviors to get us through our lives to this point.

Often, I have avoided feelings of solitude, melancholy, anger, or sadness because it doesn’t always feel good.  Honestly, one of my common habits was to jump to the next challenge, the instant feelings of good, or even to invalidate those feelings deemed as bad by trying to change it all to the positive.  But what I am learning is being in the moment and being in the moment isn’t always a pleasurable experience. I know, that is what is often attached to it, but solitude and melancholy have given me the time to sit in my cocoon and ponder the inside job.

That inside job takes the risks of change. It requires validation for what we are feeling.  Change comes with, often times, feelings of resistance and fear – often in spite of the obvious need or view of the benefits. People fight change, I think, because they

• Don’t want to leave a comfort zone
• Don’t think the change makes sense
• Fear the outcome won’t match up to the expectation
• Fear of losing something that they value
• Fear of giving up something that makes them feel good (right or wrong) because then they will only be left with what makes them feel bad.

Resistance emerges when we feel there is a threat whether the threat is real or a perception and belief.  All of it “feels” very real.

But to be like the caterpillar, the resistance is part of the process that needs to occur to emerge into what it is suppose to become.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it can be a long process.

Just as in one of my favorite quotes, which I learn the deeper meaning for everyday:

 And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Sometimes, we have to take that risk to let nature follow its course, no matter what others think or say or do.  It is our own journey to be honored and validated!