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I’ve lived through a lot of what I call “dog days.”
These were the years of bad relationships, no money, and the daily grind of a life I couldn’t see the way out of.
But here I am, decades later, a happily married homeowner with more than enough money to live on.
If you had asked me back then, I would not have seen the significance of those dog days in creating the life I have now. Life seemed like one huge drudgery.
From the outside, it looked to me as if nothing was happening. How would I ever create change?
But little did I know then that with every hardship and every feeling of sadness and hopelessness I endured, something was simmering. Indeed, something wonderful was being born. There was more happening behind the scenes than I could ever have imagined.
Like me, you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on in this world. It would seem as if our world is going through its own dog days.
We’re witnessing power structures, institutions, and governments dissolving before our eyes. We’re seeing basic decency and freedoms spat on, and an explosion of lies, cheating, and corruption seems to be the norm.
Whenever I find myself despairing over the world’s plight—and it happens often—I have to remind myself how low my life once was and how I managed to dig myself out of the hole I was in.
Could it be our world is no different? I believe we are designed to evolve, to grow, to transform. I have come to trust in the inevitability of metamorphosis.
If you are feeling despair for all that’s going on today, then I urge you to consider the exquisite process of how the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, because this is not just another lovely account of a metamorphosis in nature, something to make you feel good. This is not something to downplay, but a reminder of the force of our evolutionary nature.
That despite the goop we find ourselves in (both personally and collectively), there are forces of nature going on behind the scenes that are designed to have their way.
Let’s not forget that the caterpillar consumes and consumes until it wears itself out and enters its cocoon to dissolve into one big goop of slurpy, formless mush.
It looks like nothing is happening except death, but there are imaginal cells that have been dormant and are waiting in the wings to create the butterfly. The dissolving caterpillar parts don’t like it one bit and try to fight back, but the butterfly always wins and finds its way out of the cocoon.
Our world hasn’t yet found its way out of the cocoon. We haven’t yet emerged as the butterfly. Collectively, we are all still in one big goopy, chaotic mess of dissolving old structures and ways of being.
And just like the caterpillar, it’s not a comfortable phase because it feels as if everything is falling apart.
The truth is: Everything is falling apart.
Life as we know it has to fall apart for something new to be born.
My previous dog days were hard, but with every awareness that my life was dissolving and disintegrating, there must have been some part of me that trusted in the dream I had for my future.
Maybe my persistent actions toward the life I desired were proof that my imaginal cells were being activated to create the dream encoded within me for a better life.
The next time you find yourself feeling hopeless and exhausted in the dog days, remember the butterfly’s journey and the power of that transformation.
Remember that out of chaos and despair comes clarity, hope, and beauty.
Remember that when you are living what you don’t want, you cannot help but call in what you desire. Orient yourself less toward dissolution and chaos, and more toward vision and creation.
Remember: when something terrible is happening to us, something wonderful has the potential to be born.
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