Confidence and Happiness by Butterfly Changes

Published December 13, 2016

Does this sound like you? Your confidence and happiness has been severely wounded. The rug has been pulled out from underneath you. Some decisions were made for you and your life has been irreversibly turned upside down. Maybe it was your health, or the breakdown of a prime relationship, or you were financially sabotaged in some way. In any case, you have experienced a life-changing event and your emotions are on a roller-coaster and out of control and you can’t share your feelings with anyone.

There are lots of emotions, sadness, grief, resentment, regret, deep sorrow. You didn’t choose to be put in a financial struggle, or an emotional pit. Maybe you decided to leave your marriage after years of depleted confidence and happiness, or maybe you were cheated on, or your adult child is addicted to something awful. Life just sucks and you want change.

You may feel embarrassed about your situation. You don’t want to admit to your friends and family what has transpired behind closed doors because you don’t want the judgment, the questions, or the criticism and unsolicited advice toward you or your situation however, you do desperately want him to wake up and to say he’s sorry, what was he thinking? He had made a terrible mistake, but deep down you aren’t even sure you want it put back the way it was as you are fearful his behaviour change wouldn’t be long term.

The egg phase of the butterfly is the beginning of the healing part.

This is the phase of your transformation that you have the power of choosing confidence and happiness.

It’s comfortable in your little cocoon stage, but it’s very lonely and very dark in there. Now it’s getting squeezy and there is no room to move in there. As nature would have it, the butterfly has no choice but to change and evolve. It’s out of their control so nature kicks you out to the caterpillar stage

In the caterpillar stage, its only job is to eat and eat and eat. This is the phase of choosing to move on. It’s a very empowering time to free yourself from anxiety and fear, to learn from your past. It’s a time to discover what isn’t working for you anymore.

That person in that previous life wasn’t you. You created that person. You set expectations for yourself that you couldn’t meet by setting yourself to endure an unendurable situation, and now it had ended and you have lost who you were. You were exhausted and empty and disappointed with yourself that you hadn’t stood up for yourself.

You may want to fly away to get away from that phase, but in wanting to do that so much you have to give up being a caterpillar. Without change there is no change. You have to get uncomfortable.

You realised you had to be willing to learn to choose “you” and start taking tiny steps in the right direction. You had to learn that you had the power of choosing how you felt. You now have to choose to step into your own power, or not?

You may have struggled with friends and people who know you and are telling you to ‘not feel that way’, or ‘now you know it’s like that, just get over it and move on.’ That’s invalidation.

It’s not like there’s a hole in the wall that your stupid cousin created by blowing something up, so just get a loan, get it fixed and move on. You have feelings, so admit how you feel and then choose to feel differently with the appropriate process afterwards, but you can’t avoid those feelings and move on without dealing with them as they will just sneak up on you and bite you on the bum later when you’re not looking.

So now close your eyes and think about what happened and give a name for those feelings. Go there now and imagine that person is in front of you and tell them what you are feeling. Don’t make yourself wrong for feeling it, but also don’t stay there! The next step is the hardest one especially when you don’t see their remorse, not even a tiny bit.

Forgiving: This is the freedom step and is an incredibly powerful key to confidence and happiness.

Forgiving is not forgetting it ever happened.

Their denial was the most painful bit, even though it was revealed in bright flashing lights you could see from the moon. It may seem very hard to forgive them when they are continually dumping on you, but let’s be very clear. Their choices for their actions were solely made by them no matter how they justify them.

Their actions do not define you, their actions define them. It was only through their inability to take responsibility for their decisions so don’t get caught up in the blame game and believe those stories because in part we also believe that of ourselves to be true, and accept the attack on our self-worth. When we are low in self-esteem and self-respect we often fall into their story and blame ourselves for their behaviour. That is not the point.

Forgive yourself

The point is we always get to choose how we respond. There are two sides to every coin, and there may be some things you feel guilty about as well. It could be the affect it had on your family, or your business associates, or that you hadn’t given them the right coloured jelly beans, but express compassion toward yourself about it. Forgiveness can take a while, but don’t remain a prisoner of that pain by giving it permission to control your life. Just write it out and come from a place of self-love and compassion.

Be grateful and watch the miracles happen.

When we are in pain we focus on the dark side of the pain, the deep, deep shadows. On the flip side we can always find things to be grateful for, even be grateful now for the revelation, the secret is out, there will be no more lies, no more denials, no more doubt. The bare, naked truth, in all it’s ugliness, or your opportunity for freedom, but there it is.

You now know what you are dealing with, in whatever form it presents itself. Respect yourself for who you are. Respect others, even the ones who hurt you, for who they are. Most of them are just wounded angels in disguise, and even though that doesn’t get them off the hook, the wounding had nothing to do with you.

To help you grow and move on, answer these four questions with honesty.

What do I have that I have taken for granted that I can be grateful for?
What is good about this situation? (Hint: No more . . .)
What made me smile today?
What is the best thing that happened to me today?

Everything that happens to us is a brilliantly disguised as an opportunity for personal growth.

After you have learned from your past, what do you want now for your future? When someone treats you badly, it just means you need to raise your standards. We can’t expect anyone to give us what we won’t give ourselves. Also ask yourself:

What is your vision for yourself?
What are the qualities you want to enhance?
What are the standards you set for yourself?

Go for the light and fly. You deserve freedom, confidence and happiness.

This is your opportunity to create your own confidence and happiness. Just like a butterfly, your are growing wings. It is here in the pupa stage where all the changes are happening inside. One big reason you were unhappy is when you look for happiness outside yourselves. You are loving yourself when you choose to step away from the person or that intolerable situation which is showing you all the signs you are not being valued no matter what you say and do, but you do get to choose how you respond to that toxicity.

When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings. Dean Jackson

You are now owning who you are and who you have become. You never need an excuse to reward yourself for your personal growth, and a makeover is a perfect way to stand your power and speak your truth.

If you need any help with any part of this process please contact Trish.