Do Caterpillars Know How To Become Butterflies?

Or do they just start doing stuff and let it happen? Victims of trauma go through the same metamorphosis.

How much do you need to know about healing from trauma and abuse before you begin?

There are a lot of butterflies around here lately. Typically, October brings the end of the Monarch migration, but for other butterflies, this is long past their season. Today, my yard was filled with them. Yellow, blue, black, green, and white ones fluttered around the yard, watching me ride around on the lawnmower.

Do they have any awareness of what they used to look like?

It made me question the cognitive processes of insects. While I doubt they have the same intellectual capacity as primates, they do have inner mechanisms that drive their actions.

These insects morph, moving from eggs to caterpillars to butterflies in a short period. Are they aware of what is happening as they grow?

Isn’t this often the same thing that happens to abuse and trauma survivors? Are we always aware of what is happening as we grow and heal? Or do we look back and see how much we’ve changed?

Is it important to understand every little bit as we do it, or is it more important that we take notice of what we have become at milestones along the way?

Which Stage Are You In Now?

Butterflies change dramatically through their life cycle. If you write it down, it almost reads like a sci-fi novel written by a 2nd grader.

They begin life as eggs. (Eggs that can sit dormant for long periods of time until the conditions are right) They eventually hatch from these eggs and look like dry worms that crawl around the world eating whatever they can find. They eat and eat with an insatiable hunger that makes them so sleepy that it eventually puts them into a coma. They need to hunker down, hide, and fall into a deep state of unknowing as they liquefy into goo, then re-solidify to transform into a new beast. Once they have successfully mutated, they crawl out of their den, bask in the light, spread their wings, and begin their new life as a flying angel. Then they spend their days eating sugar and floating on the breeze until it’s time to find a partner and have hundreds or thousands of babies.

It hardly sounds real.

This same kind of metamorphosis is what happens during trauma recovery.

The Egg Stage

This is when you are stuck in the abuse.

Whether it was 60 days, 60 years, or any amount in between. You were a metaphorical fetus waiting to be born. You are in limbo in your trauma sac and your growth journey hasn’t started yet.

Eggs and fetuses are susceptible to their environment. The “pollution” of the outside world affects them, poisoning the body and blood supply and altering the way they develop.

This is what trauma and abuse are doing to you. They poison your development and alter your psychological DNA.

When you begin to wake up and break through that eggshell you have been contaminated by them. But that doesn’t mean you are doomed by them.

You are full of potential.

The moment you began to wake up and crack through the hard casing that kept you stuck for so long, you made a choice. This is when you begin to live a new life!

The Caterpillar Stage

Like the caterpillar eating its way through life, this is where you begin to digest information.

Going to therapy, joining a coaching program, finding a support group, talking to friends or family about what happened, reading books and articles like this one, listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube videos.

These are all activities that will move you forward on your healing path.

It has to begin somewhere sometime. Try one and see what works for you. You may not like the first one you find, but the good news is that there are thousands of support systems out there.

There will be one that is right for you.

The Chrysalis Stage

After you find the right process for your growth and change voyage, you can hunker down and get to work.

It hurts to change. It feels like your insides are churning and your brain is on fire a lot of the time. You are turning into goop and reforming.

It. Feels. Crazy.

Because it is crazy.

The world you are leaving is not the world you re-emerge into. You are leaving one that was malignant and unsafe. It was designed to keep you dormant and under control. You are transforming so you can walk upright in a new world where you will be more aware and in control of your body and choices.

It’s like stepping foot onto an alien planet. The cocoon phase is a portal to your future. Even though it feels like you’re being torn apart it’s for your benefit. You are tearing apart the pieces that no longer work and reassembling yourself into the version you want to be now.

Your wings are forming. Pretty soon, when someone toxic comes your way, you can fly away to somewhere they aren’t.

The Butterfly Stage

You don’t need to be completely healed to get to this one.

Is growth a thing that has an endpoint?

Once you have some time to learn, grow, and heal, you will begin to move differently. Your thoughts and actions won’t be like they were before. They can’t be. Your eyes and ears have been opened to reality.

Becoming mindful of your body, your boundaries, and your absolute needs demands action! Your action.

This is where you activate those new wings you spent time growing and launch yourself into the light. Gaslighting, manipulation, and abuse don’t happen with exposure to the sun.

The only other option is to place those blinders back on willingly and stay put. I don’t recommend it to anyone. You won’t consider it once you’ve spent some time growing. It tastes too bitter to swallow that option.

Getting to this level was an accomplishment that no one can take away from you. You deserve the contentment that is in your life now.

Away from the trauma of the past when you used to be a victim in your egg casing.