The Hungry Caterpillar and The Midlife Chrysalis

We’re hungry for success

We’re hungry for status

We’re hungry for money

And so we work hard and do all the things that gives us all the things.

But at some point it doesn’t feel enough and so we either:

- keep going
- suddenly stop
- decide to change

If we keep going we just get bloated.

Bloated with power. Bloated with status. Bloated with money.

And we feel the weight of living inauthentically.

What we really want isn’t actually coming from these things.

Sometimes we’re forced to stop.

- health
- relationships
- life quakes

Something happens that means we have to pause.

We either then go back to the doing once we’ve “sorted” the issue that caused us to stop…

- Or we decide to change
- And we enter chrysalis mode
- Things then become uncertain

Because we’re not always sure what needs to change.

We learn more stuff, but that doesn’t help.

We become more efficient, but that doesn’t help.

We change our habits, but that’s not helping either.

We’ve stopped and then invite in more things to do… in order to change.

But sometimes we just need to stop… full stop.

To sit in the soup of the chrysalis.

And let our imaginal cells do their work.

- these are the instructions for what we can be
- they’ve been there all along
- we just didn’t give them space to do their work

Caterpillars have imaginal cells in them that are blueprint for butterfly they’ll become.

However, without entering the chrysalis and turning into soup, these imaginal cells can’t work their magic.

- The soup is scary
- It’s uncertain and messy
- You’ll probably avoid it
- Until you can’t

Today Claire Perry-Louise, founder of Like Hearted Leaders, shared the idea of creating containers for change.

The midlife chrysalis is one type of container.

A pretty scary one for some.

But there are less intimidating containers that coax your imaginal cells into action.

- A walk in nature
- A meditation practise
- A business hippy festival
- A retreat in the Alps

You don’t have to turn a drama into a chrysalis.

But you can turn your midlife chrysalis into a beautiful butterfly.

Thanks to Clair Haycraft, Ian Edwards and Sarah Bayliss for being my conversation buddies this morning and inspiring these thoughts.