Unbridled Fearlessness

This is such an incredible time to be alive!  Yes, it’s unsettling and sometimes exhausting and even heartbreaking.  And it is also powerful.  We all get to witness and participate in huge societal shifts.  This is an opportunity to co-create a major evolutionary shift toward a saner and more just world.  We have a chance to make all of this upheaval really count for something beautiful.

Although there is a lot of fear swirling, and being slung around, just now, this is actually a time for those of us who are committed to personal expansion and societal healing to practice unbridled fearlessness.  Yes, indeed, we are all being moved out of our comfort zones, but hey how comfortable was it really?  As American composer John Cage once said, “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”  Exactly!

Lesson 310 in A Course in Miracles affirms, “In fearlessness and love I spend today.”  Let’s choose peace.  Let’s choose hope.  Let’s choose love.  Let’s go boldly forward demonstrating unbridled fearlessness.  Why not?  Living and moving from miracle mindedness is just so dang much more fun!

This is an incredible time to be alive.  You are here for a reason.  Make the most of it!

I was recently interviewed about my book on the World Spirituality podcast on Unity Worldwide Radio.  We spoke a lot about navigating uncertainty and times of upheaval.  Here’s the link in case you’re interested.

My book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention can be found on all the major retail book outlets.

Why Wait?

Do you find yourself feeling like you’re waiting, waiting, …. ?  Waiting to see what happens with the COVID-19 situation.  Waiting to see what will happen with our kids getting back to school.  Waiting to see what is going to happen with your job, with the next stimulus package, with the overall economy.  Maybe even waiting to see what will happen with a loved one who is ill, hospitalized.  Will there be a vaccine?  When?  When can my family get it?  And, what is going to happen with the upcoming election?  Wow.

It really is a surreal time we are in.  I found myself in a waiting pattern, having many of the questions above and also waiting for my home re-fi to go through, waiting for word on a teaching job I’ve been working on like crazy.

One morning I woke feeling the wait and weight of it all.  Sipping my coffee in the quiet, the thought popped into my mind, “Waiting keeps us from being.”  That landed!  I had been so focused on the waiting I had been missing a whole lot of magic rolling out around me – the baby birds fledging from the knotholes in my juniper tree; the sunflowers across the street coming into full beauty, the once in a generation times of change all around me.  All the time we spend waiting for the future, waiting for the next thing, waiting for rescue, we are missing what is happening right now.  And, we are missing our opportunity to play a vital part in it.

The truth is all of life is lived in the present moment.  Our thoughts may run to future and past, but our experiences are right now.  And, we have immense power in what we make of them.  We can notice the beauty or not.  Beauty is always there.   We can express love or not.  Love is always there.

As we are all dealing with these crazy COVID times with uncertainty on many fronts, I truly hope you will make it a point to come into the present moment as often as possible, to actually LIVE each moment of life, centered in living fully, as things swirl around us.  There is no end to the magic before you if you choose to choose to be present to it.

These are indeed wild times and I urge you to stay focused on the beauty in the midst of the uncertainty and change.

Much Love,

Cylvia

P.S.

You can find tips for handling uncertainty and coming into the present moment in my book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention

Here are a couple podcast interviews I have done recently that may be of interest:

 

It’s all about the Resurrection

To all of you who are hurting, who are freaked out by what is happening in our world and in your life just now I want to offer encouragement. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one, maybe you’ve lost a job and are scrambling financially as a result, maybe you are really struggling with the social distancing – there are a lot of us in that wildly rocking boat right now.

I just want to assure you there is every possibility of a better life on the other side of this crisis, a way through the pain and the uncertainty that opens into beauty and opportunity you haven’t known before.

I know this from my own personal experience of having my life blow to pieces – losing my business, money I didn’t have, many, many people I had considered friends, even my sense of personal identity. I was so terrified and sick with grief it literally buckled my knees.

In the midst of the crisis I NEVER could have seen how much my life and work would transform and how much more peaceful and empowered I would become on the other side. I couldn’t see it then but great things came out of the long darkness.

I just want to pass this along to everyone who’s feeling freaked out right now. Take heart. Take the next step. Stay open to the truth that there are possibilities and opportunities in front of you that you haven’t even imagined. The way through to something much better is in front of you even if you can’t see it clearly just yet.

Here is an excerpt from my book that may offer some comfort – I certainly hope so:

We are each far more than a job, a title, a financial status, a criminal background, a role. We are more than a body. We are more than we know and we have a choice to make. We can fight to hold fast to the selves we think we are or we can choose to let the death of the old and familiar give birth to our True Selves. Every single moment holds the opportunity of rebirth, no matter what is swirling in the outer circumstances of our lives just now. It’s not the crucifixion that matters; it’s the resurrection. Your Easter is here — if you choose it.

From When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention.

Each one of us, and our world itself, is in a time of transformation right now and we do so with the power of grace and Spirit within our reach.  Happy Easter to you all.

Love,

Cylvia

Miracles in the Corona

“Just because something is rampant in your civilization doesn’t mean

it has to express itself in your life.”   — Abraham-Hicks

Hi friends. Like most of you, I too am dealing with the corona-disruption. I’ve been sick for over a week with what I believe is just a nasty cold but there weren’t enough virus tests for me to get one so out of caution for others I’ve holed up and switched my meetings and communications to online. My upcoming trip for business, book signings and ministerial school interviews has been postponed. And, I’ve been hearing from, and hopefully offering comfort to, many of my clients as they too face the uncertainty surrounding this pandemic. So yep, things have taken a turn we didn’t see coming.

And yes, it’s a pain and disruptive. Working parents are dealing with kids being out of school all day. We can’t visit loved ones in hospitals (or prisons). Lots of people’s jobs are on hold and many service sector workers are seeing huge downturns in income. Some folks are even having a hard time finding toilet paper for goodness sake! We’ll all be hearing a lot about, and dealing with, these kinds of challenges over the next weeks.

BUT THAT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ALL THERE IS TO THIS SITUATION!

While it makes sense for us to act responsibly and protect ourselves and others, it DOES NOT SERVE us to view this only through a lens of crisis and chaos without at least allowing for the possibility that it is also ripe with opportunity for positive change in our own lives and society. The lens we put on events shapes our experience more than the events themselves.

Here are a few things to consider:

  • “Social Distancing” does not have to mean isolation and disconnection! With phones, cell phones, email, texting, FaceTime, Zoom, video conferencing, platforms like NextDoor, etc. etc. we have so many ways to stay connected while keeping a physical distance. If you are worried about isolation don’t be passive, reach out!

 

  • Reach out to those you know who may be feeling fearful or alone. One of the best ways to gain perspective on our own challenges is to help someone else.  I have a whole chapter in my book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention, about the self-healing power of making a contribution to others.

 

  • Distance yourself from the fear. Get educated but don’t get obsessed. Mainstream media thrives on fear, stress and sensationalism and therefore that is how they present the “news”. It is designed to trigger viewers’ fear and emotions. Beware getting too sucked into their drama.

 

  • Spend the unexpected down time to tune out external noise and GO WITHIN. USE this time to relax, to imagine a better world, to let go of the rat race that is the norm and imagine a better way. We can use this time to envision (and therefore create) a culture and a government that, instead of focusing on propping up a fragile and unhealthy economic system, focuses instead on love and humanity and equality for all.  REMEMBER Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” USE this time engineer, IMAGINEER, a better way for all of us. This will actually boost your INNER IMMUNE SYSTEM.

And just a little food for thought, remember, CORONA is the term we have given to the bright outer rim of the sun only visible when all the rest is in darkness.

Love,

Cylvia

The In Between

Sometimes things happen that just knock us off the place in the world we thought we were standing on — death of a loved one, a health crisis, loss of a job, divorce, or even things we might choose like retirement. These abrupt changes can feel like a sort of death in and of themselves; our old familiar identity disintegrates, the dream of what we thought our life would be crumbles.

In anthropology, there is a concept known as the liminal phase describing how, in cultures that have clear rites of passage rituals such as moving from boyhood to manhood or from initiate to mid-wife or priestess, there is a period in which the initiate has lost their old identity and place in society but has not yet been granted the new status or reintegrated into society; that in between time is what is known as the liminal phase.

More recently liminality has crossed over from anthropology into psychology and is used to describe when a person suffers major life upheaval that shakes us loose from our familiar identity and position in community or society. This is usually a very challenging space for a person to remain in because it is detached from known routines and social interactions and support. The sense of liminality, of being in between the old and new way of being, often hits during sudden, intense life-changing events.

As I share in my upcoming book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention:

“I was a couple of months into my public shaming experience when someone first shared the term liminality with me and I cried as I recognized and resisted the space I’d been forced into. On some subconscious level I was terrified that the upheaval and uncertainty would be permanent and I’d be trapped in a purgatory of pain and isolation for the rest of my life.”

My initial reaction to the bomb blast was to scramble to capture up the pieces and try to put things back together somehow, to keep my work going, to force my way forward, but the events had been too catastrophic and at some point I just had to give in, to surrender to the fact that things were never going to look the same again. I finally stopped working and allowed myself to be worked on from within and that’s when I struck gold.

For those of you sitting in what feels like an identity blast zone take heart, the terrible upheaval won’t last forever. And have courage because there is tremendous transformative power in in giving the liminal uncertainty some time to work its magic.

Being initiated into the deeper levels of ourselves often involves being willing to sit in the field of uncertainty for some time as our inner landscape shifts and new currents begin to move. It’s like the eagles who flow with the wind, carried in one direction then the other, until finally the wind itself lifts them up above the turbulence.

In my Launch Your Next Chapter program I work with a lot of people who are navigating liminality and transition and are determined to come out the other side with greater clarity, peace and power. If this sounds like you I invite you to a complimentary empowerment coaching session – just click here and pick a time that works for you.

In the meantime, here is a beautiful meditation called The Space Between

And remember, a butterfly pulled too soon from the chrysalis never fully forms its wings and so never flies. Our world will be so much more beautiful when we all are flying.

Love,

Cylvia

The Missing and Harnessing Loss

It’s now been a month since Tessa passed. The first few weeks were intense, indescribable really. Missing became a noun, a thing – “The Missing”. I would be going along, doing life, and The Missing would reach up and grab me, freezing the breath in my chest and flooding my eyes. It jumped me even when there was no obvious trigger beyond a lovely memory wafting through. In truth, it was so deep it was akin to a phantom limb; a beautiful part of me I expected to be there that wasn’t. I had to start adjusting to going through life a little lesser, a little less rich, quieter.

I am still grieving, tears still springing at unexpected moments (like now, as I write this) but it is softening – love and gratitude far outweighing the loss. I sometimes now feel her presence on the breeze, and it makes me smile.

I really don’t know if loss, transition and trauma happen for a purpose but I absolutely do know we can make purpose of everything that happens.   Tessa’s passing shifted me out of my normal state of being. After the first week, as the most jagged edges rounded a bit but the grief was still incredibly powerful, I found myself in a softer, slower energy that was just perfect for finishing my book.

I know I announced late last year that I’d finished the book, but after speaking with the publisher, editors and doing market research I realized that for it to fill the niche I’m hoping for the book needed to be a good bit longer. I have worked throughout this year to get it where it needs to be and within a few weeks When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention will be headed to the editor, cover designer and graphics team and finally to completion and launch! Whew, it has been a JOURNEY! I am so proud of myself for seeing it through and for not rushing it, for allowing it to become something I really want to put forth into our world.

Loss isn’t easy and grief really can’t be rushed, but it can be harnessed. It can open us to gentler, more vulnerable and therefore more creative energies. Once I get this book fully fledged, I’m thinking about doing another titled, Soul Dog, for all of us who take the beautiful risk and reap the rewards of giving our hearts fully to a four-legged, furred or feathered friend. Thanks for the inspiration Tessa, my sweet pea.

This pic of her has become my favorite since her passing. It was taken just two months before she passed and before I had any idea how soon that was to be. We were out on a hike and, as I had done so many times before, I looked back at her and my heart flooded and I said, “Do you know how much I love you?” As she had started doing in the frosty-faced portion of her life, she looked right into my eyes and smiled, her way of saying, “Yes I do know and right back at you.”

Life is process and man it hurts sometimes. Change is guaranteed even if we wish it weren’t. We are never what we have lost. We are not what has been torn from us and we definitely are not broken beyond repair, ever, unless we choose to build the brokenness and victimhood into our beliefs, our stories and our identities. Even when it all blows to pieces we still are everything we were before. We might not still have what we had — the positions, the possessions, money, the athletic body, the children, the loved ones — but we still are the culmination of experiences, talents, current and former abilities and impactful relationships that make us uniquely us. Every one of us is the sum total of all we have experienced, felt, learned and unlearned before. There is never only one way to view a challenging event and never only one possible outcome.

I still have Tessa’s urn and little shrine on my front room floor. Cards and letters and even lovely drawings poured in from people whose lives she had touched and who cared about us – I am really touched by that and I just love it that so many people loved her. I expect at some point I will spread her ashes in various places that she loved, but not just yet. I will know when that time is right. In the meantime I feel for her on the wind and allow my heart to open a little further.

Love,

Cylvia

P.S. For those of you facing a period of transition and reinvention, whether it be grief, loss or just wanting to find clarity of purpose in the next chapter of your life, I have four openings for complimentary Reinvention and Empowerment Breakthrough sessions. Just schedule a time here — https://calendly.com/cylvia/30min. I very much look forward to talking with you.

The Power of Rewriting Our Stories

It can be damn unsettling to be at a point of major transition and life or career reinvention in our 40s, 50s and 60s. And yet, reinvention at this point in life is unbelievably common. Take heart, you are not alone!

There are more Americans between the ages of 45 and 65 than any other age block in our country AND a whole heck of a lot of us are in the midst of big life transitions and changes.

One of the best ways to harness change as a path to peace and empowerment is to take a deep and honest look at the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world. We all consume stories by media and pop culture and our own families and  we wind up attaching to some of these stories and accepting them as truth even when that might not be the case.

For example, pop-culture media is filled with images and stories of celebrity success and accomplishment that are mostly airbrushed illusion.  Sensationalist news media pours heavy doses of fear into the mix, enticing us to compare ourselves to those airbrushed images in order to get our attention and willingness to spend money on their advertisers’ products. None of this has anything much to do with depth, substance or real life.

The stories we buy into about ourselves, life, limitations, are just that, stories. But they are immensely powerful: they literally shape our experience of life.

When I was forced out of a career I’d spent my whole life building, I felt utterly adrift, heartbroken, terrified and really pissed off. I was also unable to do anything to get back what I had lost. After raging around for a time in anger, resistance and despair, I finally made a decision to take control of what I could which was the way I chose to view the situation. Instead of sticking with the story (however justifiable it might have been) that I had been unfairly targeted and taken out, I chose to view it as an unasked for sabbatical to explore other areas of life and myself.

I wound up growing and expanding so much that when the dust settled and the reshaped landscape of my life came into view, I realized I didn’t even want to do what I’d been doing before! I had grown into new dimensions and directions. In fact, that’s what led to me developing the Launch Your Next Chapter and Jedi Activist programs and doing work that I LOVE.

In recent years I’ve worked with many, many people in the process of reinventing at mid-life. Like all of us they started out pretty afraid but as they began to let go of the old scripts and write new stories they have gone on to launch new businesses and non-profit organizations, find beautiful new loving relationships, sort out difficult financial situations and even boldly pick up and move to new countries they’d always wanted to experience.

One of the most disempowering stories we buy into is that we are supposed to be in a certain place at a certain stage in life. It’s the false story that we “should have done thus and so by now” and are too old to do (fill in the blank), now.   For the most part, that is garbage. Just consider:

  • Mother Teresa was forty years old when she founded the Missionaries of Charity.
  • Jack Nicklaus was forty-six years old when he shot 65 in the final round, and 30 on the back nine, to win the Masters.
  • Henry Ford was fifty years old when he started his first manufacturing assembly line.
  • Ray Kroc was a fifty-two-year-old milkshake machine salesman when he bought out Mac and Dick McDonald and officially started McDonald’s.
  • Pablo Picasso was fifty-five years old when he painted Guernica.
  • Dom Pérignon was fifty-six years old when he first produced champagne.
  • Oscar Hammerstein II was sixty-four years old when he wrote the lyrics for The Sound of Music.
  • Winston Churchill was sixty-five years old when he became Britain’s Prime Minister.
  • Nelson Mandela was seventy-one years old when he was released from a South African prison. Four years later he was elected president of South Africa.
  • Michelangelo was seventy-two years old when he designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
  • Auguste Rodin was seventy-six years old when he finally married Rose Beuret, whom he met when he was twenty-three.
  • Benjamin Franklin was seventy-nine years old when he invented bifocal eyeglasses.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright was ninety-one years old when he completed his work on the Guggenheim Museum.
  • Dimitrion Yordanidis was ninety-eight years old when he ran a marathon in seven hours and thirty three minutes, in Athens, Greece.
  • Ichijirou Araya was one hundred years old when he climbed Mount Fuji.

The truth is there are myriad possibilities in every situation and most of them we are unaware of, until … we aren’t! How many times has life delivered an opening you never saw coming? That doesn’t end as we progress through it. In fact, the experience and seasoning we gain along the way broadens the options for what’s possible.

What stories are you telling yourself about yourself and the options before you? Are you certain those stories are accurate? Are they serving you? Remember, you have the power and the right to write your own story.

Love,

Cylvia

Crisis or Awakening?

Are you at that mystifying place called mid-life wondering how the heck you got here and what’s next? Maybe you’re facing some unexpected challenges or just wanting to have more of a sense of purpose and direction. Maybe there’s an urge to hit the reset button.

It might not feel like it but I promise you if you are facing major transition and challenges at this particular turning point in life you are sitting on a gold mine of possibility and potential.

I was devastated and freaked out when my life and career blew up in seeming catastrophic fashion in my late 40s. It felt like everything I’d worked for was destroyed and the best was behind me. Well, believe me, I am thrilled to report that I couldn’t have been more wrong! My unasked for life reset opened up whole new pathways to understanding, self-forgiveness and peace that utterly transformed my way of being in the world and with myself. My crisis turned out to be a mid-life awakening and it was the best gift I never imagined!

Here’s one thing I know, surviving, overcoming and thriving isn’t so much about analyzing and hustling gathering information as it is about remembering what we already know; it’s about coming home. There is no need to become better or more or different; all you need is to remember who you already are.

Here are a few tips for mastering mid-life transition:

  • Learn to question and manage fear.

Mark Twain once said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” The simple truth is we tend to harbor a lot of fear about future “what ifs?” that may not even come to pass. Learning to release unproductive fear is a key to empowered transition.

  • Do a Can and Can’t Control exercise.

The secret to success and happiness is knowing that there are some things you can control and some things you cannot. Think about the situation or issue you are concerned about and make a list of what you can control and what you can’t. Spend your effort on things you can control and let the rest go.

Most importantly remember, you are more than a body. You are more than a job, a title, a financial status, a role. You are more than you know. You have a choice to make. Every single moment holds the opportunity of rebirth, no matter what is swirling through the circumstances of your life just now.

It’s a damn shame that in our culture there is no mid-life rite of passage and celebration. I mean for goodness sake it’s a big deal making it through early adulthood and getting some seasoning and wisdom under our belts! But we don’t even have a way of pausing for breath and celebrating our success in getting this far.

I encourage you to do that right now. Take a breath. Give yourself a moment to appreciate all that you’ve accomplished up to this point. And remember, in so many powerful ways you are just getting started. After all, in any really great play all the best stuff happens after the intermission!

Something powerful is happening to you because you have something powerful to do.

With love,

Cylvia

 

If you’d like some support launching the next awesome chapter of your life I would be more than happy to talk with you. You can schedule a complimentary Mid-Life Mastery Breakthrough session here.

You’re Invited to Your Own Power!

Are you wanting more from your life? Looking to hit the reset button after life took a hard turn you hadn’t seen coming? Do you want to start or grow a mission-driven business? Do you want to get unstuck, period?

Then I invite you to join me at my upcoming reinvention and empowerment workshop. This is not your typical self-help workshop. Most personal development stuff is about trying to improve yourself, get rid of aspects you don’t like, overcome shortcomings. The problem is, that’s a scarcity-based approach and it just reinforces the message that you’re not good enough! It’s exactly the opposite of what we need to achieve more peace, power and success in our lives.

I learned this the hard way. I know exactly what it’s like to have life as you know it blow to pieces and find yourself reinventing career, relationships and even your basic personal identity at a time you never thought you’d need to. Several years ago, my career and life had reached heights I hadn’t dreamed of and then it all blew apart in a spectacular, public, “fall from grace”. I lost my business and ninety-percent of people I’d called friends or colleagues and, faced with all the legal challenges, I had to file bankruptcy.

At first I was terrified that my life might be broken beyond repair. For once I couldn’t just force my way forward and so, out of pure survival, I decided to treat it as an unasked for sabbatical. For the first time I truly surrendered and faced myself from the inside out and through that epic journey I realized up to that point I’d never really known myself at all, I had never before met my authentic Self.

For four years, as the legal challenges dragged on, I followed a path of study, reflection, growth and reinvention. I got certified as a life coach, completed the first chunk of ministerial school, and received training from numerous beautiful wisdom teachers. I realized that my whole life I’d been seeking power and success from outside sources – the approval of others, the way my business looked, even from the political arena — but the refining fires of life blowing to shreds burned away the BS that had been blocking me from my True Self and genuine power.

I developed a program that not only helped me heal but transformed my life in beautiful ways I never could have foreseen. I am now, happier, more peaceful, more successful and making a bigger positive difference than ever before. I radically reshaped my business because I knew I had to harness the trauma I’d been through and share the empowerment tools, strategies and insights I’d learned so that I could help more people make a bigger positive impact for themselves and our world.

I am deeply committed to helping others rediscover their authentic Selves, reclaim personal power and create lives and businesses that help heal our world. My empowered reinvention workshops are one way I do that and I would love to see you in the next one coming up Feb. 2nd.

In this workshop you’ll learn tried and true strategies to uncover your innate ability to:

  • Transform fear into clarity and a sense of empowerment
  • Find peace no matter what’s swirling in the circumstances of life
  • Embrace the awesome creative power of change and uncertainty
  • Find forgiveness, even of self
  • Develop a sense of genuine self-worth and safety

And the biggest outcome is learning to remember your own divine magnificence and get out of your own bad-ass True Self way!  

The path to power isn’t about looking outside for answers and authorities, trying to “fix” yourself, fill up places you perceive as empty, or even “attract” desirable things. The power is in remembering who you really are.

Let’s do that together February 2nd! Let’s make 2019 the best year of your life so far!

For more info and to register go to www.cylviahayes.net (go to Store tab and you will see the link there)

Here’s what some people had to say about the last workshop.

“It was a wonderful day …. I loved being a participant … your cloud of magical learning and how profound your teachings are. In gratitude for your sharing of your authentic self. – Tam

Thank you for the wonderful experience. It was truly fantastic, and really beneficial to me.  I’m definitely at a crossroads in my life, and a lot of things are up in the air.  I’m in need of finding the path that’s right for me, and in the process, am definitely working through a lot. Our class was right in line with that, and helped me immensely … Again, I thank you for this. – Maggie

You Wow’d me … workshop was amazing!I learned why I have been so withdrawn and lacking motivation. I also learned to get free of limiting thoughts, quit being so hard on myself, and embrace my new beautiful life even more. I so appreciate your workshop. – LD Sullivan

Designing the life you want isn’t about becoming more or better, it’s about remembering who you really are to begin with.  Remembering your True Self enables you to master your emotions, step out of suffering and into the life you really want – no matter the circumstances you’re facing right this moment.

True power is not outside of you and you are already magnificent, powerful and completely capable.

Date: February 2, 10am to 3pm

Location:  Unity Community at One World Center, Bend Oregon 

Register at: www.cylviahayes.net (go to Store tab and you will see the link there)

Reframing Loss

Would you lose the ability to crawl to be able to fly?

We are not what we have lost. We are not what has been torn from us. We are not broken beyond repair. Ever.  When it all blows up we still are everything we were before. We might not still have what we had, the positions, the money, the athletic body, the children, loved ones, but we still are the culmination of experiences, talents, current and former abilities that make us uniquely us.

Life is flow – and ebb. It comes and goes and comes again. In loss there is always opportunity for new gain. Sometimes when we stop clinging so hard to the old and familiar we are gifted with new and incredible we couldn’t have imagined.

The lifecycle of the butterfly offers gorgeous guidance. The little caterpillar gets hit with an urge to change. Once it has wrapped itself inside a cocoon its body literally begins to disintegrate. At some point, new cells activate. They’re called imaginal cells. At first, the old caterpillar creature attacks them as foreign bodies but those attacks actually hasten the disintegration. Finally, at a point of maximum disintegration, the imaginal cells reach a critical mass and sort of wake up, recognize one another and realize they are no longer a worm, but instead a winged butterfly.

Our lives are like that too. We can stay folded in, wrapped in the cocoon of loss, fight against the changes, or we can unfurl with new depth and perspective and fly. The choice is always ours.