Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Be a Butterfly!

It’s quite a journey from caterpillar to butterfly. Have you taken it?


Soar like a butterfly
Soar Like a Butterfly
Have you ever watched a pupa struggling to get out of its cocoon and take flight as a beautiful butterfly? Would you agree that the result is worth the effort insofar as enjoying a beautiful insect in our garden or around our flower beds?

Can you Identify with Life in a Cocoon?


Many people are in struggles with serious implications. We are caught up in a tough, unyielding cocoon of emotions and negative thinking. We resolve again and again to burst out of the prison we’re in; but again and again, we give up, usually before the struggle starts, and slowly slide back down in the darkness of our hopelessness. If we don’t get free, the emotions may eventually destroy us.

Take a moment and describe your personal cocoon – from the inside. What is it that defeats you again and again? Why is it that you can’t soar in the bright sunshine like everyone else? It really does seem that everyone is soaring except you, doesn’t it. Is what binds you actually happening again and again or is it just the emotional handcuffs of thinking about something painful in your past.

Or someone you love dearly is trapped in their own emotional cocoon.

Wouldn't you like to help them escape?


Its hard watching someone we love hurting; watching them fight against the emotions that shackle them. It’s tempting to try to make the pain go away.

What would happen if we snipped the end off a literal cocoon so the butterfly could slip out and soar? The simple truth is that he wouldn't soar – he would die. The butterfly needs the exertion of opening the cocoon to strengthen itself for life as a butterfly.

Who of us would not snap our fingers and release a friend from bondage if we could? It just won’t work. One needs the experience of beating the odds – of winning the battle – to make the habit of living the role as a freed person. Emotional prisons have to be opened from the inside.

Look at the cocoon


Have you examined an empty cocoon? Look at the frayed opening and you’ll see the thousands of tiny threads that have been cut from within by the baby butterfly. You could think of the threads as the negative emotional thinking that entraps you in your emotional cocoon.

Breaking free


Unless we deal with each of those emotional threads ourselves, we can’t escape the cocoon.

Somebody said, “My problems are too big.”

Dr. Richard Carlson (see the book list at the right) wrote a book entitled “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” with the subtitle, “It’s all small stuff.”

It’ can be overwhelming to consider everything as a whole – to always look at the big picture. It’s much more feasible when we realize that the emotional cocoon is made up of many tiny emotional thoughts; and if we deal with those thoughts one at a time as they recur, we will eventually have dealt with all of them.

And dealing with a single thought gives us a tiny bit of emotional peace. The thought may come back and we deal with it again. But it’s not long until the tiny moments of peace become connected and you have developed a habit of peace regarding that particular issue.

Our mind is an incredible thing; but it always works one thought at a time; if we slice things small enough. We can deal with some really big things by handling just one piece at a time.

I've just described the working premise of Finding Personal Peace in three paragraphs.

You don’t have to continue to be trapped in your own emotional cocoon. You can be free to soar in peace.

Go for it!

Rod Peeks Soaring like a Butterfly

www.findingpersonal peace.com

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