Become A Butterfly

 "To become a butterfly you must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar" 

The choice is yours to change but deciding you want to become a butterfly instead of a caterpillar means hard work. It means re-programming yourself to intentionally make better choices that are different to that of your upbringing or adulthood; not to say good choices wasn't made but there will be some things you no longer agree with. 

To re-programme yourself, it could mean "re-parenting" yourself - paying attention to the things you no longer agree with for how to live your life and behaviours that stemmed from childhood that are a problem in adulthood. They say that things you experience as a child shapes you into the person you've become, and some of these experiences that formed certain behaviours in you, no longer serve you as you're not in that environment where it was once useful. As an adult it's down to you to leave behind what no longer serves you from your childhood and change so you can become a butterfly. The process of healing from childhood wounds is not an easy one because it's been ingrained for so long but it is possible through counselling/therapy and using art for therapeutic purposes. 

To re-programme yourself you need to make choices about the kind of person you wish to become, think about where could you improve, what behaviours need to change and what you like about you but could work on more to get an idea of how much work is involved to become the butterfly.  Once you've figured this out, there are 3 main areas to focus on, self-care, joy and discipline. 

Self-care is a complicated one, taking care of yourself has many forms it can be things you physically do (which will vary from person to person) or things that you mentally look at/change for example it could be being mindful of your surroundings/yourself reflecting and processing, being compassionate to yourself when you've made mistakes or getting comfortable with your boundaries. Physical stuff would be trying to get proper sleep, journal regularly, meditate, prioritising movement and proper nutrition, spending time in nature and practising setting boundaries. 

Joy can be finding play (stuff that feeds your childlike curiosity), doing unplanned stuff, creating something and cultivating a new hobby are all ways to re-ignite the inner child in you and find some joy. You could also help/do something nice for someone else, listen to music, watch something funny or see your loved ones. 

Discipline would be things like training your mind to be less negative or more grateful, achieving your daily tasks/goals, sticking to your word if you said you'll do something do it - build the foundation of good habits and learn to say no to what no longer serves you well.  

Focusing on these areas will help to heal you and change things in baby steps; you won't achieve real progress if you try build Rome in a day (by this I mean you can't work on everything in a day),  it's a process that may take your whole life to complete depending on how much you'd like to change and the journey will look different for everyone. There's no set rules on what order to take the baby steps for reprogramming yourself,  for example you may choose to work on both self care and joy in a day so this could include better nutrition and creating human connection; Some days you might want to just focus on discipline but I recommend taking breaks for joy/self-care even 5 mins spent colouring in a colouring book will help your mental health...if you put too much pressure on yourself trying to become the butterfly chances are you won't become the butterfly. Small baby steps each day is how you become the butterfly -  work on what you can each day, practice the skills and you'll start to notice a change at some point you turning into the butterfly. 

What's stopping you from becoming the butterfly? 

Till next time,

Stevie x