Letting Go
From somewhere deep within me comes the cry, “You can let go.” The Letting Go meditation on The Tapping Solution app is my new obsession. Change doesn’t just happen. It is a struggle of surrendering, of letting go. It is a daily decision to live in a new way, a new way of being. Every time I tap on acupressure points, I decide to let go.
The process of trauma recovery
A butterfly starts its existence as an egg its mother laid on a plant but its life begins as a caterpillar crawling on the ground. There is a big distinction between existing and living. When you merely exist, you let others tell you how to live. You become a people pleaser who struggles to say no. That’s what existing looks like for me. Just as the egg becomes a caterpillar, I have had to become someone who can know her mind and speak it out when she needs to do so.
As a caterpillar grows, its skin splits and sheds four or five times. To become who my Creator intended me to be, I have to change and grow. My skin must shed more times than the caterpillar sheds its skin. Growing means changing, and sometimes change isn’t pleasant. After all, when a caterpillar is full-grown, it stops eating, and it is then that it becomes a pupa in a cocoon. Its pupa is called a chrysalis. Depending on the species, the pupal stage can last from a few weeks to two years. Change takes time. Impatience won’t help the caterpillar become a butterfly quicker, and it won’t help me heal.
While it looks like absolutely nothing is happening when you look at the chrysalis, many changes are going on inside. Cells that existed in the larva are growing fast and will develop into legs, wings, eyes, and other parts of the butterfly. It may not look like much is happening inside of me every morning when I do my morning ritual of tapping, meditation, and contemplative prayer, but much is occurring.
Eclosion is what the process is called when the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. Hormones trigger the central nervous to begin the movements needed so the butterfly can emerge. The butterfly pushes through with its legs after removing the piece covering its eyes and proboscis. It then has to crawl out of the chrysalis to expose its abdomen and wings. The butterfly’s wings are folded and need expanding and drying. As it moves its wings, meconium is pumped into them and the butterfly’s body. The wings will dry and harden, taking anywhere from a half-hour to two hours.
Preparing for change
I am so much like the butterfly, and so are you. Before we can spread our wings and take flight wherever our Creator directs us, we must be ready, and readiness does not come overnight. It is a process and takes time. Tap by tap, meditation by meditation, prayer by prayer, our brains rewire and change, emerging from the chrysalis of trauma. As our brains change, our spirits get ready to take flight.
There is no easy way to achieve a butterfly’s emergence. If you cut a butterfly out of its chrysalis, permanent damage occurs. If we try to circumnavigate the healing process to achieve fast-food healing, we will remain damaged. Like the butterfly, we need the transformation process, and like the butterfly, we will emerge our true selves if we go through the process.
Prayer
Did something resonate with you? Pray this simple prayer:
Oh Lord, I know that like the butterfly, you want to change me for the better. I ask You to make me into the person You created me to be. Give me the strength I need to continue on this healing journey knowing that you won’t leave me where I am at.