When Old Patterns Resurface
Something strange is happening. Do you feel it too?
Over the last month, I've been experiencing symptoms and patterns that have not surfaced in two decades: neck pain, TMJ, acid reflux, toe infections, over-extending myself, feeling stuck, exhaustion.
These are things I haven't experienced in years. I am not doing anything dramatically different, so why are the old patterns resurfacing now?
Over the past week, I've been hearing the same thing from clients and friends. Old symptoms are resurfacing. Old relationship dynamics are reappearing. Old patterns that we thought we had moved beyond are standing in front of us again.
It can feel discouraging after years of personal work and self-reflection.
Why are we going backward?
During meditation this week, a visual popped into my awareness that gave me a completely different perspective. What if we are not falling apart and we are not losing the progress we've made? What if we are not going backward at all?
What if we are reorganizing ourselves for a huge leap forward?
In the meditation, I saw myself as a caterpillar inside of a chrysalis. The caterpillar breaks down into mush. She lets go of all that she was. She releases her structure.
This is where I am today. In the mush. Releasing structure. Feeling uncertainty of the future and yet knowing that I'm on the right path.
It is truly extraordinary. The caterpillar disintegrates into mush, and rebuilds herself cell by cell into something new: a butterfly. The same DNA has taken a new form. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis with capabilities the caterpillar couldn't have imagined.
The old patterns may be returning to our awareness because they are ready to be seen in a new way.
We are invited to embrace the mush stage. We have the opportunity to rebuild ourselves at a cellular level. We retain the same essence and DNA. We are the same person we've always been. Yet we have the opportunity to take on an upgraded form.
I don't know exactly what is emerging yet. For now, I'm learning to be ok with being in the mush and trusting that there may be a butterfly on the other side.
