Episode 1: The Disservice of the Butterfly Metaphor
Welcome to the brand new podcast Emergence from Life’s Biggest Obstacles with Emergence Coach, Wendy Sloneker! To kick off, Wendy shares what Emergence really means and how the process can look and feel so different under different circumstances.
Emergence happens throughout our lives, not just once. So while the transformation can be as beautiful and mysterious as the caterpillar turning into a butterfly, it isn’t always accurate to think about the process as a one-time “now I’ve changed, and I’m the real and final me.” Wendy would love to support you with your Emergence. Get more information on her website wendysloneker.com or visit goinginside.me for more on her group coaching program. In this episode:
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Full Episode Transcript
You are listening to Emergence from Life's Biggest Obstacles podcast, with Wendy Sloneker. This truly is episode one. So glad you are here. And I want to just take a moment since we're at the beginning yet again, at the beginning, I want to note that life's biggest obstacles gets to be defined by you by what you are finding as your biggest obstacles in your life.
A lot of what I'm going to be talking about on this podcast is not only mind management, thoughts and feelings management, but also how do we take a step back and see a bigger picture. This is so that emergence process can continue to happen sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as is said, in some spaces here on the planet. But you get to define this, you get to decide if this is going to be a form of support for you is this podcast, I'm not going to tell you, the biggest obstacles are these because nobody else is living the life that you are living.
And we have never been in this one minute before right now. So I'm gonna say some of my core beliefs are, it counts when you count it, you get to decide. And well, it's not really a belief, but it is a fun fact. And I do like whipped cream on my second cup of coffee, which is often my third hot beverage of the morning.
I want to just note that change is coming faster and bigger changes are happening and on the way. Our brains are very busy. Our days are very busy. Our days are also full. So here's another belief, full days add up to a full life. One after another. They add up and they all count. That was it Alexander Woollcott, who said there's no such thing in anybody's life as an unimportant day.
That hit years ago, and it still does. So if we are new to each other. This is a little bit about me and where I'm coming from, but also where I'm going. Speaking of where I'm going and where we're going. Emergence is a process. It can be a gentle one, it can be a painful one, it can be a motivating one, it can be in fiery illuminating baffling exasperating one. But it's a process. I've just made this announcement that I'm I'm moving from being a grief specific coach to being this emergence coach.
Now, emergence was something that was delivered to me in terms of like, Oh, here's an idea. And it happened kind of blow my mind and into my heart and chest area, where emergence was calling me as a word. I looked it up, check the definition, the whole thing and discover that, yeah, it is a process. It's a noun for a process. I thought it was more of like an action or a verb. And I think I was thinking about emerge.
So emergence is a process. And a lot of people when I first shared this word with them, and I started talking about, like, where I think this is calling me to, a lot of people came up with the butterfly metaphor. Like, oh, yeah, like coming out of the cocoon. Right? And, honestly, I love and hate this metaphor. I think there's like a significant implied disservice in the butterfly metaphor. And here's what it is, when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or things like this, like the caterpillar has one life, one cocoon, and then it's a butterfly, right?
There's lots of nuances. We're going to be talking about this path over and over again. But here's the thing. We humans, I'm going to point this out, it's going to sound so obvious, because it is we are not caterpillars. We don't get just one transformation. We don't get just one cocoon. We don't get just one emergence process. When and I think this is what bugged me so much about it was like, okay, is this the one is this the final one because I've spent a lot of time and cocoons turning to goo.
Emerging from that cocoon into my next face. So as changes are coming more quickly, more rapidly, and some of them even for me, I know that it's in my nature because I'm, I'm a human with human wiring, and lots of gray cells and lots of soft tissue and lots of nerve endings, there are things that I'm afraid to face and move toward, even though I'm being called toward it.
So resistance is part of it. And going into a cocoon, where I'm just like, unsure that I really want to go there, or I'm ready or willing is just part of life experience. So having spent a lot of time creating and building cocoons, going into them, turning into goo, becoming something else. And then emerging from that. That happens multiple times in a human life. It can some more than others. And I get that, I get that if you're navigating something you've or a couple of some things, some of which you cannot maybe control because it's happening outside of your own self. This can be challenging and difficult. This is support for that road. Right here. With me the sound of my voice.
Yeah, we're going to be talking through multiple cocoons. Like it occurred to me this morning. And as I was preparing for this recording in this very first episode, like, Has it ever happened that one Caterpillar goes into its cocoon, and then it turns into twins or quad triplet butterflies? Is that possible, because that happens in humans, but like the cell structures real different.
Sometimes it feels like it, sometimes it feels like I'm going in to one cocoon, and I'm turning into four different beings or two different beings. And it could be fun, I'm just highly sensitized to cell division. That's okay. But in the moment, it feels really baffling, and sometimes really scary. There's more than the regular amount of wobble that goes on. And, and it's change. There are things that are going to fall away as you're becoming someone new. And there are things that you are going to grow in integrate, that you've never saw coming.
This is the wild ride of life. And I wish somebody told me that we get more than one cocoon that would have been useful in kindergarten. I don't know if I could have really like, comprehended that, but I could have probably used that message again and again, because I thought I was waiting for one epic one. And I think this is also related to that sense of wanting to quote, arrive, right? Have you ever felt that that you're like, hey, is this the one? Is this the big change where I'm finally going to be me?
No, it's all of them. And some of them may have been easier than others, like first second grade, if you happen to go to elementary school, kindergarten, first grade, first a second grade, these are variations on what could be considered cocoons. We go in as a kindergartener, and we come out as a first grader after that summer. Now we're going into a summer right now, which can be also a kind of a kick. Any season can be your cocoon.
And I don't want to give any kind of like bad mouth to that safe place that is protective, and hand built or heart built, so you can survive and change. This is where my previous grief work will come in handy. No judgment on the cocoon. Even if you don't want to have to need it 100% I get a little bit fatigued at the idea of, oh, I'm going to be something else. I'm going to do something else, I'm going to try something else. Sometimes that can be very tiring based on the number of changes and shifts and transformations that I've already experienced in this life. I'll go into that more in another episode.
But does that resonate with you? Can you identify the many different types of cocoons or spaces that you've needed to take in order to shift either out of emotions or heartbreak or grief, or identity or statuses or circumstances? They all bring their own shifts, and sometimes this is real nuanced and hard to get what that shift is, but I'm here to share with you that it all counts.
We are born to feel and born to expand, born to create, and born for more, not gonna judge that either. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna recommend that that is optional to judge it. But I don't want to anymore. Because it it's too painful to go against my nature, and to talk myself out of who I am. That takes far too much energy. And that's not where I want to go anyway.
Okay, that feels like a natural end for this episode. This number one episode, I'm so delighted you are here. If you have been a listener of the Heart Healing from Loss podcast, all those 70 episodes are gonna stay up in the ether webs. And they're going to be available. I know, there's some really, really great episodes in there. And they're going to stay, I'm going to invest in those so they stay right where they are, just what they do. We're gonna promote them for sure. So you can still see them and hear them.
But this is where more is going to happen. It's not just about what happened. It's also about where we're going and how we're going. Oh, it's juicy. And I will talk to you again really soon. With a big hug. Goodbye, friend.
Listen, it's already hard enough. It's plenty hard enough. And support is available in my goinginside.me program. That is actually the web address as well. If you're finding that you would prefer to be more responsive and less reactive. This is the place for you. This may seem obvious, but I'll share it anyway. We humans take most of our actions based on feelings. So this includes reactivity, this includes distraction, this includes numbing out, it includes all of it, mostly we just don't know how to do it. So goinginside.me is where we practice and normalize what's actually happening in your life and world. It's a group coaching program as well as a course of modules. This is available and love for you to join me. Go to goinginside.me and check it out. You are 100% invited and you deserve to be supported. Now.
A lot of what I'm going to be talking about on this podcast is not only mind management, thoughts and feelings management, but also how do we take a step back and see a bigger picture. This is so that emergence process can continue to happen sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as is said, in some spaces here on the planet. But you get to define this, you get to decide if this is going to be a form of support for you is this podcast, I'm not going to tell you, the biggest obstacles are these because nobody else is living the life that you are living.
And we have never been in this one minute before right now. So I'm gonna say some of my core beliefs are, it counts when you count it, you get to decide. And well, it's not really a belief, but it is a fun fact. And I do like whipped cream on my second cup of coffee, which is often my third hot beverage of the morning.
I want to just note that change is coming faster and bigger changes are happening and on the way. Our brains are very busy. Our days are very busy. Our days are also full. So here's another belief, full days add up to a full life. One after another. They add up and they all count. That was it Alexander Woollcott, who said there's no such thing in anybody's life as an unimportant day.
That hit years ago, and it still does. So if we are new to each other. This is a little bit about me and where I'm coming from, but also where I'm going. Speaking of where I'm going and where we're going. Emergence is a process. It can be a gentle one, it can be a painful one, it can be a motivating one, it can be in fiery illuminating baffling exasperating one. But it's a process. I've just made this announcement that I'm I'm moving from being a grief specific coach to being this emergence coach.
Now, emergence was something that was delivered to me in terms of like, Oh, here's an idea. And it happened kind of blow my mind and into my heart and chest area, where emergence was calling me as a word. I looked it up, check the definition, the whole thing and discover that, yeah, it is a process. It's a noun for a process. I thought it was more of like an action or a verb. And I think I was thinking about emerge.
So emergence is a process. And a lot of people when I first shared this word with them, and I started talking about, like, where I think this is calling me to, a lot of people came up with the butterfly metaphor. Like, oh, yeah, like coming out of the cocoon. Right? And, honestly, I love and hate this metaphor. I think there's like a significant implied disservice in the butterfly metaphor. And here's what it is, when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or things like this, like the caterpillar has one life, one cocoon, and then it's a butterfly, right?
There's lots of nuances. We're going to be talking about this path over and over again. But here's the thing. We humans, I'm going to point this out, it's going to sound so obvious, because it is we are not caterpillars. We don't get just one transformation. We don't get just one cocoon. We don't get just one emergence process. When and I think this is what bugged me so much about it was like, okay, is this the one is this the final one because I've spent a lot of time and cocoons turning to goo.
Emerging from that cocoon into my next face. So as changes are coming more quickly, more rapidly, and some of them even for me, I know that it's in my nature because I'm, I'm a human with human wiring, and lots of gray cells and lots of soft tissue and lots of nerve endings, there are things that I'm afraid to face and move toward, even though I'm being called toward it.
So resistance is part of it. And going into a cocoon, where I'm just like, unsure that I really want to go there, or I'm ready or willing is just part of life experience. So having spent a lot of time creating and building cocoons, going into them, turning into goo, becoming something else. And then emerging from that. That happens multiple times in a human life. It can some more than others. And I get that, I get that if you're navigating something you've or a couple of some things, some of which you cannot maybe control because it's happening outside of your own self. This can be challenging and difficult. This is support for that road. Right here. With me the sound of my voice.
Yeah, we're going to be talking through multiple cocoons. Like it occurred to me this morning. And as I was preparing for this recording in this very first episode, like, Has it ever happened that one Caterpillar goes into its cocoon, and then it turns into twins or quad triplet butterflies? Is that possible, because that happens in humans, but like the cell structures real different.
Sometimes it feels like it, sometimes it feels like I'm going in to one cocoon, and I'm turning into four different beings or two different beings. And it could be fun, I'm just highly sensitized to cell division. That's okay. But in the moment, it feels really baffling, and sometimes really scary. There's more than the regular amount of wobble that goes on. And, and it's change. There are things that are going to fall away as you're becoming someone new. And there are things that you are going to grow in integrate, that you've never saw coming.
This is the wild ride of life. And I wish somebody told me that we get more than one cocoon that would have been useful in kindergarten. I don't know if I could have really like, comprehended that, but I could have probably used that message again and again, because I thought I was waiting for one epic one. And I think this is also related to that sense of wanting to quote, arrive, right? Have you ever felt that that you're like, hey, is this the one? Is this the big change where I'm finally going to be me?
No, it's all of them. And some of them may have been easier than others, like first second grade, if you happen to go to elementary school, kindergarten, first grade, first a second grade, these are variations on what could be considered cocoons. We go in as a kindergartener, and we come out as a first grader after that summer. Now we're going into a summer right now, which can be also a kind of a kick. Any season can be your cocoon.
And I don't want to give any kind of like bad mouth to that safe place that is protective, and hand built or heart built, so you can survive and change. This is where my previous grief work will come in handy. No judgment on the cocoon. Even if you don't want to have to need it 100% I get a little bit fatigued at the idea of, oh, I'm going to be something else. I'm going to do something else, I'm going to try something else. Sometimes that can be very tiring based on the number of changes and shifts and transformations that I've already experienced in this life. I'll go into that more in another episode.
But does that resonate with you? Can you identify the many different types of cocoons or spaces that you've needed to take in order to shift either out of emotions or heartbreak or grief, or identity or statuses or circumstances? They all bring their own shifts, and sometimes this is real nuanced and hard to get what that shift is, but I'm here to share with you that it all counts.
We are born to feel and born to expand, born to create, and born for more, not gonna judge that either. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna recommend that that is optional to judge it. But I don't want to anymore. Because it it's too painful to go against my nature, and to talk myself out of who I am. That takes far too much energy. And that's not where I want to go anyway.
Okay, that feels like a natural end for this episode. This number one episode, I'm so delighted you are here. If you have been a listener of the Heart Healing from Loss podcast, all those 70 episodes are gonna stay up in the ether webs. And they're going to be available. I know, there's some really, really great episodes in there. And they're going to stay, I'm going to invest in those so they stay right where they are, just what they do. We're gonna promote them for sure. So you can still see them and hear them.
But this is where more is going to happen. It's not just about what happened. It's also about where we're going and how we're going. Oh, it's juicy. And I will talk to you again really soon. With a big hug. Goodbye, friend.
Listen, it's already hard enough. It's plenty hard enough. And support is available in my goinginside.me program. That is actually the web address as well. If you're finding that you would prefer to be more responsive and less reactive. This is the place for you. This may seem obvious, but I'll share it anyway. We humans take most of our actions based on feelings. So this includes reactivity, this includes distraction, this includes numbing out, it includes all of it, mostly we just don't know how to do it. So goinginside.me is where we practice and normalize what's actually happening in your life and world. It's a group coaching program as well as a course of modules. This is available and love for you to join me. Go to goinginside.me and check it out. You are 100% invited and you deserve to be supported. Now.