emotions – Page 12 – Out of the Chrysalis

Prepare for Change

Published on May 4, 2013 by Kimberly Novak3 Comments

photo (27) It’s official! The butterflies are hung, I am home. Change is good, when your prepared. Life is amazing, unpredictable, chaotic, stressful, and full of surprises and it’s one of the reason’s I haven’t written in a while! I never thought that something I was dreading, and nervous about could actually be a positive thing in my life. As I write this tonight, I am sitting in a place where I never imagined I’d be, let alone be ok with it. It’s funny how life works. I have owned a home since 2002 and never set foot inside until two years ago, and just recently I moved in to make it MY home.

The past couple of months leading up to the move were filled with doubt and most of all fear. I have learned to trust my intuition so it wasn’t the decision I was doubting, it was whether or not I was strong enough to handle living with it. This change was the right one for me financially and for my family. We were quite cramped in my two bedroom condo, teenagers look like giants in that space! I knew I was doing it for the right reasons, I just wasn’t so sure I could handle the emotional side of it. The house brought back some very painful memories of my divorce and I had been anticipating a lot of tears once I moved in.

I had even planned to sit and write an award-winning blog post on that night. I just knew the words would fall off my fingertips along with the tears down my cheek. I kept telling myself… “for tonight, just cry”. (I’d been listening to a lot of Mandisa, link below) Well to my surprise I did not shed any tears that first night or any night since! In preparing for this move I made sure that every room had my touch, things that needed to be removed were removed, items that needed to be changed were changed, and the house is now all ME.

I have learned that no matter how scary change may be, preparation is the key. I know things would have been a lot different that night if I had not made changes prior to moving in, but because I did I was able to do it without any emotional scars. We all know that you can get through things a lot easier in life if we are prepared, it also holds true with our emotions.

I’ve become very close friends with my emotions over the past few years and I knew in my heart, mind and soul what I needed to get me through this, I just didn’t think it would actually work! As I settle in I’m finding out that I am going to be ok here and I”m reminded so much of what the caterpillar must feel like once it enters the chrysalis and realizes it’s going to be there for a while. I’m in mine right now, it is in this place where I will grow the strongest I have ever been. I know this because it took all the courage I could muster up just to move in. I faced it, I did it and I conquered.

I’m here now to learn more about who I am and to grow. As I get to know the different rooms in the home I become changed, empowered and strong. It may sound funny but I think the house and I needed each other. In a sense I am healing the home one little improvement at a time, and in return it is healing my heart by showing me just how strong I really am and in a way it is loving me back. Where the butterflies land….is home.

Be a strong caterpillar, don’t fear change embrace it! Have you conquered change? Comment below.

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

5/4/13

don’t panic

Published on March 17, 2013 by Kimberly Novak6 Comments

dream-butterfly The caterpillar has just realized that she is trapped in her cocoon until she is ready and strong enough to fly on her own. What do you think is going through her mind? I’d like to think she is calm, relaxed, and reflecting on what her future will be like once she is transformed. Perhaps she closes her eyes and in a calm voice whispers to herself, “don’t panic”.

They are only two little words, 8 letters in total but when I speak them or hear them there is no calm in my voice. Recently after a Chinese dinner I opened a fortune cookie. I’m usually very excited to see what lies ahead, but this time when I read those two little words my pulse began to race. All I could think of was why? Why should I not panic? What do I have coming that I will want to or need to panic, and how long to these Chinese fortunes last?

Life is full of bumps along the road and hills to climb and panicking through them will only make it harder to survive. I thought about the past few years and wondered if there were any situations where I did panic, and I was able to think of a few. When I look back on them now I can see that being in a panic mode did not really help me to resolve anything. Then I looked even further back into my marriage, to an incident that if I would have processed it correctly, I would have seen what was happening then, instead of six years later.

When we panic we over-anticipate things which can make it look to us like we are over reacting. That is what happened to me. Instead of calmly looking at the situation one piece of evidence at a time and focusing on the facts and what I was seeing, I panicked. I went into a OMG mode and I missed clues, over looked facts, and ultimately that led me blindly into the false explanation that I would soon accept as truth. Those emotions can cause you to look at things irrationally and at times you may even become fearful and hysterical. I had immediately imagined the worst but because I was in that rushed surge of emotions, I convinced myself that I was wrong. The emotions that panicking brought out of me were crazy, therefore I discounted it all. Since then I have learned to trust my gut feelings and I know now that if I want to really hear them and feel them I have to go through difficult situations in a calm manner.

I can’t go back and change that moment but I can certainly learn from it. I can let that moment go and make sure that in the future I pause before reacting. Storms come and go in our lives just like in the weather. At times we get a warning and other times they just drop out of the sky. It is important that we have our emergency response system working properly. At the first sign of trouble, or when the first dark cloud rolls in….pause….take a deep breath and whisper “don’t panic”, I’ve got this. Then try to focus on the facts and what you need to do in order to grow, change, or move forward out of the storm. Learn what ever life lessons are coming from it, accept any changes, and take pride in knowing that you have survived it. As the storm passes, spread your wings and soar! z_p18-The-butterfly

I do not even want to imagine how many dizzy butterflies there would be if every caterpillar went into a OMG panic mode when they emerged from their cocoon. Don’t be a dizzy butterfly….take a deep breath….close your eyes…..and whisper “don’t panic”.

Have you panicked and it altered your reasoning? Please share in the comments.

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

3/17/13

Surrender…And Seek The Blessings

Published on February 11, 2013February 21, 2013 by Kimberly Novak1 Comment

UPDATE: Two days after writing this post I was lucky enough to attend a Laura Story Concert. I was a little apprehensive about going because after all it was Valentines Day! But I sucked it up and went anyway. I’d like to share the video I took of Laura performing the song Blessings, which I referenced in this blog post. (click link below) Close your eyes, listen to the words then pay close attention around the 4:47 minute mark…..The song ends yet she still has a little more to say. Listen to her words and then look at the title of this post again! It’s truly AMAZING! That was a very big God moment for me, it was in that moment that I knew he is aware of what is going on in my life! Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/v7K3K97XEcM

“The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transformed into peace. Anything you accept fully will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.” – Eckhart Tolle

When I read that quote I could picture the caterpillar in the cocoon at her weakest moment, afraid, unsure and unaware of her potential if she would just take a deep breath and surrender. Sounds easy right? How many times have we told ourselves to stop and take a deep breath, then move forward. Probably too many to count. This week I had the chance to wave my flag and surrender.

flowers_surrender_124110 I’ve noticed that while we see the beautiful butterfly, the product of all the hard work, we rarely see the caterpillar. I visited a butterfly garden this summer and the focus was on the butterflies flying around the exhibit, but I was entranced with the caterpillars in their cocoons. The time spent in the chrysalis is the toughest part of the transformation. I would guess that there would be confusion, pain, worry and fear. Sounding familiar? They are too me. Those are exactly the feelings I dealt with while surviving my divorce, or as I like to think of it, the beginning of my time spent in the chrysalis.

I was forced to make many tough and painful decisions during that time and one of them is still with me today. It is one that I had been regretting for the last year, that has caused not only emotional pain but some financial hardship as well. I knew that I could not continue to beat myself up about it and I had resolved that it was the right thing to do at the time. I had become satisfied with the fact that it was now in my past. I was living with it and thought that I was at peace. Due to some unforeseen circumstances in my near future, I have come to a part on my journey where I need to make yet another important decision that will create change. Initially all I could feel was anxiety, so much of my life the last few years has all been about unwelcome change. That terrified me and I know I did not take the time I should have to come to the decision I had, even though I know it is the right one. I had been praying for guidance and for a specific resolution that did not come. I questioned the reasons why I was still facing the outcome of my decision. I often felt myself wanting to question my faith, unsure of the possible lesson God was trying to teach me. Then with the help of a song that had gotten me through many sleepless nights, I was reminded that my blessings may come from raindrops, my healing from tears, and if I stay strong, this too I will conquer, for this trial may be my mercy in disguise. Laura Story, Blessings. Listening to that song, and really thinking about its meaning, helped to ease my anxiety. It also gave me the chance to take a deep breath and surrender the situation to God. I realized I could no longer control any outcome whether it be the one I wanted or not and lucky for me I was about to get many unplanned hours to really think about it. Just like the caterpillar…

Just a few days after announcing my decision, I was struck down with the “nursing home flu”, which meant a 7 day quarantine. The first few days I really didn’t spend much time in deep thought but as I began to feel better and wander around my place I had the opportunity to take some inventory. I had found several files on my laptop that were left over from my divorce, notes I had written in times of sadness, and items from my marriage that I really didn’t need to be holding onto. I started to realize that I should use the downtime to fully surrender to the changes I had gone through, purge them and let myself go, in hopes that someday I can become the butterfly I am destined to be.

I spent many hours hitting the delete button, wiping the tears as I went along, feeling relief as the files were disappearing from my sight. When I got too emotional and wanting to give up, I tried to imagine myself as the caterpillar shedding a little bit of her fuzz as she transformed inside the chrysalis. After a while I felt exhilarated. I chose that moment to really sit and think about the decision I had made earlier in the week, making sure that it was truly something I could handle. I came to the conclusion that YES I can handle it. It may not be something that I hoped would happen or something that I planned for, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Was my divorce something I planned or hoped for? No, but I have come out of it changed, transformed, re-born and strong! This decision was no different and it will give me the same opportunities for growth. I can see the progress I have made and I know I am stronger, because this change, this place I will be going to, is the same spot where just a few years ago I became the strongest version of myself I had ever been.

Today, after being locked up and alone for nearly a week I can say that I am strong enough to handle this new change and I can see good in it. The positives far outweigh the negatives and with a little elbow grease, perseverance love and determination, I will come out on top in the end. Perhaps what is most important, is that with this surrender I no longer have the worry about making the initial decision in the first place. In surrendering, I have found peace.

If the caterpillar never surrendered and if there was no change, there would never be a butterfly. Take the opportunity when it is thrown at you to wave your white flag, surrender to your feelings, doubts, fears and move forward on your journey with faith, hope and love.

Have you had your chance to surrender? Leave a comment. (link is left of the post title)

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly 2/11/13

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