The Penny Drop

Baby Steps

Caterpillars and butterflies.

I spent about 35 years living as a caterpillar. I really feel like I got the shitty end of that stick when I consider that an actual caterpillar is only subjected to its slow dreary form for between 2 and 5 weeks until it makes the glorious transition into butterfly-hood. That isn’t a word? Don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time! (Seriously, I’m having a ball…)

A caterpillar is cocooned. It writhes and wriggles until it breaks free. Until it arrives.

I too have been cocooned. Actually, let’s call a spade a spade here. I wasn’t cocooned. I was imprisoned. The funny thing is that I was my own jailer. Irony has a way of biting you on the ass.

For 35 years, I squirrelled away thoughts and beliefs that I painstakingly added to the walls of my self made prison. You don’t come in and I don’t come out. Just like the caterpillar can rest easy in its cocoon, I too was safe in my self made prison.

I’d always strike first so as to make sure I couldn’t be the one left wounded. I shit you not, my laser tongue could (and did!) make eyes water. I made it my business to make loving me difficult and I convinced myself that I didn’t need to love anyone else, either. Physical contact with me? Come and closer and you run the risk of losing an eye. Perhaps two.

I laid trip wires all around the external jail walls. God help you if you stepped on one. One of those trip wires said that I should only be spoken to in ways I considered appropriate. Of course, you don’t know what I consider to be appropriate and so you rock up with all your inappropriateness, set off my trip wire and boom! I retreat behind the walls of my prison and the connection we could have shared if only things had been different never saw the light of day.

I’d sit in my prison and ponder at what was wrong with the world. My tripwires (a.k.a. my rules for how life should be) made perfect sense. Any decent person would have them. Come on now, you all know beyond knowing that friends shouldn’t talk about you behind your back. Don’t you?

The problem with living like this is that it’s lonely. I used to look out of my prison walls and watch the world go by. They all seemed happy. I didn’t think I was happy. But they were all wrong!!!! At some point, it came down to a choice between being happy and being right. It got to the point that the pain of living in my safe jail became too much and I knew that I had to put on my big girl pants, bust my ass out of jail and…live.

I can hear him again but this time he’s singing ‘I want to break free.’ Hold on tight for more tenuous song links – we aim to please!

And so, like the butterfly, I arrived. And I finally understood what all the self help gurus have been banging on about for so long.

That is the point of this work. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have heard about personal development. Spiritual growth. Mindfulness. And you’ll have recognised them as abstract terms that dark witches use. A lot of mumbo jumbo – way too out there for us respectable folk. Woo woo cocktail, anyone?

Here’s the thing. They’re right. All that preaching, all the high rhetoric, all the ‘feel into it’, all the deep breathing, all the ‘love yourself’. People, this shit works. Does it work overnight? Come on now, you live in the real world don’t you? Of course it doesn’t. But with a sprinkle of consistency, a dollop of dedication, a spoonful of open mindedness. Ok, I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

The point remains that this life of yours is there waiting for you to grab it by the balls and let it know that, actually, you’re running this particular show.

I’ve had to do a whole lot of soul searching before I could muster the gumption to write this. I ain’t no spiritual guru – I’m a hard faced professional that deals in cold facts. Who am I to get on my soapbox and start preaching to the masses? Why would anyone listen to what I have to say?

Here’s the other thing (and you’ll see that this is a theme throughout this work if you stick around for the ride) – I am the only person on this planet that can say what I want to say in the way I want to say it. I, like you, am unique. There’s only one of me. There will only ever be one of me. Just stop for a minute and let that really sink in.

Think for a moment about the countless stars that had to align just right for you to be sitting on the ass that you’re sitting on right now.

You are not here by accident. I am not here by accident. In fact, each of us is a pretty big deal. On that basis, I cannot stand by and watch the message I am supposed to deliver to the world go unspoken. I once heard Gabby Bernstein say “You are the servant of something fucking unstoppable. Get out of the way.” Gabby’s tiny but she’s feisty so I figure I should probably heed her words.

And so if my message helps only one confused girl (or boy) who is sick of looking at the grainy, cold and grey walls of her prison then I will truly have been the servant of something unstoppable.

It’s time. Let’s butterfly up, bitches.

Hello world!

Caterpillars and butterflies.

I spent about 35 years living as a caterpillar. I really feel like I got the shitty end of that stick when I consider that an actual caterpillar is only subjected to its slow dreary form for between 2 and 5 weeks until it makes the glorious transition into butterfly-hood. That isn’t a word? Don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time! (Seriously, I’m having a ball…)

A caterpillar is cocooned. It writhes and wriggles until it breaks free. Until it arrives.

I too have been cocooned. Actually, let’s call a spade a spade here. I wasn’t cocooned. I was imprisoned. The funny thing is that I was my own jailer. Irony has a way of biting you on the ass.

For 35 years, I squirrelled away thoughts and beliefs that I painstakingly added to the walls of my self made prison. You don’t come in and I don’t come out. Just like the caterpillar can rest easy in its cocoon, I too was safe in my self made prison.

I’d always strike first so as to make sure I couldn’t be the one left wounded. I shit you not, my laser tongue could (and did!) make eyes water. I made it my business to make loving me difficult and I convinced myself that I didn’t need to love anyone else, either. Physical contact with me? Come and closer and you run the risk of losing an eye. Perhaps two.

I laid trip wires all around the external jail walls. God help you if you stepped on one. One of those trip wires said that I should only be spoken to in ways I considered appropriate. Of course, you don’t know what I consider to be appropriate and so you rock up with all your inappropriateness, set off my trip wire and boom! I retreat behind the walls of my prison and the connection we could have shared if only things had been different never saw the light of day.

I’d sit in my prison and ponder at what was wrong with the world. My tripwires (a.k.a. my rules for how life should be) made perfect sense. Any decent person would have them. Come on now, you all know beyond knowing that friends shouldn’t talk about you behind your back. Don’t you?

The problem with living like this is that it’s lonely. I used to look out of my prison walls and watch the world go by. They all seemed happy. I didn’t think I was happy. But they were all wrong!!!! At some point, it came down to a choice between being happy and being right. It got to the point that the pain of living in my safe jail became too much and I knew that I had to put on my big girl pants, bust my ass out of jail and…live.

I can hear him again but this time he’s singing ‘I want to break free.’ Hold on tight for more tenuous song links – we aim to please!

And so, like the butterfly, I arrived. And I finally understood what all the self help gurus have been banging on about for so long.

That is the point of this work. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have heard about personal development. Spiritual growth. Mindfulness. And you’ll have recognised them as abstract terms that dark witches use. A lot of mumbo jumbo – way too out there for us respectable folk. Woo woo cocktail, anyone?

Here’s the thing. They’re right. All that preaching, all the high rhetoric, all the ‘feel into it’, all the deep breathing, all the ‘love yourself’. People, this shit works. Does it work overnight? Come on now, you live in the real world don’t you? Of course it doesn’t. But with a sprinkle of consistency, a dollop of dedication, a spoonful of open mindedness. Ok, I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

The point remains that this life of yours is there waiting for you to grab it by the balls and let it know that, actually, you’re running this particular show.

I’ve had to do a whole lot of soul searching before I could muster the gumption to write this. I ain’t no spiritual guru – I’m a hard faced professional that deals in cold facts. Who am I to get on my soapbox and start preaching to the masses? Why would anyone listen to what I have to say?

Here’s the other thing (and you’ll see that this is a theme throughout this work if you stick around for the ride) – I am the only person on this planet that can say what I want to say in the way I want to say it. I, like you, am unique. There’s only one of me. There will only ever be one of me. Just stop for a minute and let that really sink in.

Think for a moment about the countless stars that had to align just right for you to be sitting on the ass that you’re sitting on right now.

You are not here by accident. I am not here by accident. In fact, each of us is a pretty big deal. On that basis, I cannot stand by and watch the message I am supposed to deliver to the world go unspoken. I once heard Gabby Bernstein say “You are the servant of something fucking unstoppable. Get out of the way.” Gabby’s tiny but she’s feisty so I figure I should probably heed her words.

And so if my message helps only one confused girl (or boy) who is sick of looking at the grainy, cold and grey walls of her prison then I will truly have been the servant of something unstoppable.

It’s time. Let’s butterfly up, bitches.