Your Divorce Transformation: Be the Goo

(32:20)
“…they are experiencing themselves as caterpillars crawling along, often quite successfully, but some deep intuitive voice is whispering, “There is something I’m missing.

I need a cocoon. I need to go back and find myself.” Now they may not quite realize that when caterpillars go into cocoons, they do not emerge as high-class caterpillars; and they may not be prepared for the agony of transformation that goes on inside. Nor are they quite prepared for the wing of beauty that slowly and painfully emerges, but who lives by a very different set of laws than a caterpillar.

“Even more confounding is the fact that friend and relations who may be quite happy caterpillars have no patience with a silent hard-edged chrysalis that is all turned in on itself…selfish, lazy, self-indulgent…They have even less patience with a confused butterfly who hasn’t adjusted to the laws of aerodynamics. Still it is amazing how many happy caterpillars suddenly take the clue, design their own chrysalis and find their own wings.”

(34:35)

“The chrysalis is absolutely essential if we are to find ourselves. Nothing in our extroverted society supports introverted withdrawal. We are supposed to be doers…unselfish, energetic…There is one thing needful and if you haven’t got that one thing needful then it doesn’t matter…I can’t do anything useful if there is no “I” to do it! I can’t love anyone else if there is no “I” to do the loving. If I don’t know myself, I cannot love myself. And if I do not love myself, my love of others is probably my projected need for their acceptance. I am putting on a performance in order to be loved. I fear rejection. If nobody loves me, I won’t exist. But who are they loving? Who am I? That is what going into the chrysalis is all about. Undergoing a metamorphosis in order to be able to stand up and say, ‘I am.’”

For me personally, going through this metamorphosis, this necessary “alone,” at first, and for a very long time, felt like death. Then it unconsciously shifted into reckless abandon, desperate and indiscriminate reaching out, pleasing, hoping someone or something outside of myself would fix it, fix me, undo the alone and put me back into relation in order to validate my worth and my being. Only we can never find this because it doesn’t exist. A me, doesn’t exist outside of me and being is not relational. We only abandon ourselves, acting out, un-self-aware, un-boundary-aware, not feeding ourselves, allowing every violation at our expense. Truthfully, I am not free and clear of this stage, but now I am becoming conscious of this process and trying to settle into self-care and self-love. Eating, sleeping, working for myself.

When you finally realize and feel truthfully for the first time in your life that nobody is watching you, you first feel terror and think, “Nobody gives two s**** about me.” But then it’s like, “I can do whatever the h*** I want.” But when the truth of it really comes to settle in peace, more deeply, it whispers, “I can finally ‘do’ for myself without guilt or shame. I can finally love myself in the ways I need and like best. I can finally generate, experience, receive, and give love for the first time in my life.” There is no mortal audience to dress up for, perform for, or please. There is no heavenly tribunal to fear.

Mary Oliver, famously wrote in her poem Wild Geese:

Individuation and Maturation

Do you want to be defined relationally or freely? Performative or subjective? One will bring death. While the other will give you life. That’s it. You can be an accessory and an object; or you can be a fully embodied, empowered human. An adolescent or an adult. Independent. Taking responsibility for your life. Doing your work. Going to work. Getting a job. Fixing your s***. Reparenting yourself. Parenting a child.

There is no ignoring it. It’s now or later. It was always then or now. Even if you were denied this rite of passage in your youth, the imperative remains unchanged. Just a matter of timing now. Life work is slow. Personal work is doable. Relational work is deliberate. Meaningful work is sustainable. Anything else is just trauma speaking – tempting you to stay the caterpillar and never enter your cocoon.

Feeding ourselves, pleasuring ourselves, working for ourselves, these are the real privileges of adulthood, and simultaneously they are our responsibilities to ourselves and to others in our lives. When we care for ourselves, we remove this burden from those closest to us and honor their sacred right to care for themselves. The realities of responsibility only serve to enhance the reality of pleasure. So, eat. Sleep. Rest. Work. Sex. Take care of yourself. Fear nothing. Embrace the autonomous responsibility and pleasure of being. Live well and live happy. And should you feel despairingly alone in this moment, please let me share my knowing with you.

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars are my lovers. They keep constant watch over me. The Earth is my mother. She feeds and holds me.

Jam of the day: Butterfly, by Deb Talan.

Courage, love, and dry your wings

Fly like a butterfly in Spring

Don’t ask why, just do something and fly

Why not?

You’re a butterfly

You want a new tattoo, you want another you

Look in the mirror, see a stranger’s eyes

She doesn’t know just where she’ll go

Some other girl she ran the show

Maybe soon, a face you’ll recognize