“What the caterpillar sees as the end, the butterfly welcomes as the beginning.” – Patricia Barnett
This quote was originally a bit different – coined in 6th Century BC by Lau Tzu, the founder of Taoism: “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” Considered a master, Lau Tzu also made popular this quote: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
Fast forward to 1977, the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach, restated the butterfly quote like this: “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” From caterpillar to butterfly – this study of transformation fascinates us.
You, too, can master the art of transforming your own circumstances into new desired states of being. The process itself is powerfully simple and elegant, but not always easy.
We all have areas in our lives that we want to change. Yet we can experience a daunting resistance to that change. There is a state of “scared caterpillar-ness” from which we must emerge. Instead of fighting, the secret is in learning to embrace our resistance. Our resistances are only clues…clues to a greater good which seeks to express through us. Just as a cellular shift happens for the caterpillar inside the chrysalis, there is a mental shift we can make inside our thinking which is equally effective.
There is a mental shift available to you. The butterfly welcomes a new beginning, and so can you.
