Transformation Ahead: Signs You Are Moving into a Chrysalis

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – Buckminster Fuller

Throughout your life, you experience multiple phases when the course, direction, or meaning of your life changes considerably. These transformative times propel forward your personal growth and development, providing you an opportunity to shed what no longer works to your benefit for the purpose of expanding into great authenticity and a larger life.

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, you metaphorically enter a chrysalis stage during these transformations. The word “chrysalis” is a Greek word, meaning “golden sheath”. It is an exoskeleton -- a hard, smooth covering that shields the insect inside as it transforms from a caterpillar to a butterfly.

The insect has no choice but to follow its instinctual programming to go into a chrysalis stage. You too may find yourself in a chrysalis against your wishes if outside circumstances force you into it. Unlike the caterpillar, you can consciously choose to create your own chrysalis for a desired transformation. Either way, entering a chrysalis creates the protective circumstances that allow you to let go of behaviors and beliefs that don’t work for you anymore, as you move toward greater authenticity.

“A great beginning is sometimes at the point of what you thought would be the end of everything.” – Dodinsky

Here are some signs that you’re entering a chrysalis stage:

1. Stop Consuming

While an insect in the chrysalis stops eating, you stop ingesting the limiting beliefs that have propelled you to this point. Or at least you start questioning them. When you are about to engage in personal transformation, you realize that, 1) who you are is not who you want to be; 2) what you ‘re doing is not what you want to be doing; and/or 3) the life you’re leading is not the one you want to lead.

2. Hanging Upside Down

The caterpillar hangs upside down by a thread before the chrysalis forms. Sometimes, for you, your world is turned upside down. Things don’t work the way they used to for you. Or maybe you’re in a terrible accident that causes substantial physical injuries. Sometimes, it’s emotional pain that signals a transformation is needed. Whatever the signal is, you know that you need to do some inner work to enable to forge a new way forward.

3. Forming Your Chrysalis

A caterpillar molts into a chrysalis to protect itself during its metamorphosis. Similarly, it would be wise for you to create or find supportive places and people to assist you through the transformation. A coach, trusted friends, or a counselor can join you in the chrysalis as you go through the process.

Once you are in your protective chrysalis, the real work begins. But a lot of the effort is deciding to prepare one and get inside.