I’m looking at the sunrise from my bedroom window and the colors are vibrant this morning as dawn breaks and the world wakes up again. I think back to those early years in private practice. I had never seen myself as owning my own business. In fact, the prospect terrified me so much that when the opportunity arose, my very loud and very persistent shame-voice tried to remind me that it was better to stay put. I knew routine, I knew how to stay in my lane. I was a good therapist but the idea of becoming my own boss brought up the biggest and most truest form of Imposter Syndrome I could possibly imagine. But I did it anyway. That was nine years ago and I have a full and thriving practice with clients who teach me everyday that everyone has a story, everyone holds pain. And everyone deserves to find their own path to healing and transformation.

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Papilio. Butterfly. Transformation. I have always held such reverence and curiosity for these creatures. How does a caterpillar wrap itself around a cocoon, hang out there for a while and when it’s ready to emerge, it breaks free from the chrysalis with new wings to boot? We know that if we break open a cocoon too early, we will find, not a cute caterpillar growing its wings, but instead a heaping pile of mush. This transformational process takes time and I imagine some work on the caterpillar’s end. I liken this transformation to humans and our own lives. Sometimes life can feel so overwhelming that we need to bring it in- to cocoon up. It’s where we find ourselves in the thick of our own “mush”. As I witness in my therapy practice with clients, this cocooning up is where we learn to grow our own wings as humans. We can emerge when we’re ready and these wings can be any size, any color, any pattern or shape we want them to be. We get to choose that for ourselves. And the greatest thing about this transformation? We can do this a thousand times over throughout our lives. We get to try on new wings and learn to fly time and time again, and as many times as we want. 

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Many of you who have known and followed me over the years know that I have gone through my own transformations and new beginnings several times over (some of you may remember my last attempts at blogging several years ago)… Two years ago I went through one of the most complicated and painful experiences in my personal life. As I simultaneously leaned on my support system while cocooning up and turning to mush, I began to figure out what I wanted and needed these new wings to look like. It took a lot of work, a lot of therapy and a lot of flying and falling. But I can say that I’m now used to this new pair of wings. They are all the beautiful colors from my past that make me who I am today. But most of all, they feel strong and that strength allows me to continue to practice flying. Will the wind toss me around a bit? Yep. Will I get knocked down to the ground again? Absolutely. Because that’s life and it’s filled with magic and beauty as well as darkness and pain. We can’t escape it.

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When we cocoon up, we can rebuild our wings the way we need them to be as we embark on new chapters in our lives. When we can recognize our own transformations and our own growth, the journey becomes more fulfilling and more meaningful. Because we have cocooned up, we can find our more courageous, more authentic selves because we know that we have rebuilt these wings to fly.