Baggage
Looking at this photo, we see the butterfly at the end clinging to the cocoon. For some time as it went through metamorphosis, this was the only home it knew. The butterfly is clinging to the baggage of its past. Instead it needs to send the bag to the baggage claim.
Like the butterfly, we need to give up the life we have known. You can’t continue to cling to what is no longer serving you, if you really want to start anew. This means leaving behind the bags of fears, illusions and false beliefs we carry from our past.
Scientist have proven that the moth and butterfly remember being a caterpillar. But what the caterpillar knew doesn’t serve the butterfly. The butterfly requires a different food source. It is built to fly. To try and carry the cocoon along, because it helped to create the butterfly would only weigh the butterfly down. It would not be able to fly as it was meant to.
The butterfly can honor the cocoon for the part it played in helping it to grow into a new creation. The butterfly can face the fear of flying, of letting go of the only thing it knows and fly off into the future it was born to live.
We are also carrying around baggage. The baggage could be mental, emotional, even physical items around our home. We all know the saying “as above, so below” or “how we do one thing, is how we do everything”. Physical clutter or baggage around our home and working environment is a clear sign that we also have either mental or emotional baggage that is cluttering up our life.
These are all things that no longer serve us. To get us on track to releasing the baggage, it is easiest to start with the physical clutter around us. Take a trash bag and a donate bag and start looking through everything you have in your environment. Nick knacks that no longer appeal to you, but you are keeping because a friend or relative gave them to you. Things that are broke or torn that you have been meaning to fix for months or years. These are all things that can go to either the trash or donate box.
Once you have cleared the physical space around you, you will feel lighter. If you have ever had long hair and got it cut short, your head feels so light, almost like it is floating. This same feeling is what you have as you clear up the physical clutter or baggage.
Once you see how freeing it is, you can move on with confidence to releasing the mental and emotional baggage. Soon you will be flying high like the butterfly who has left the baggage of the cocoon in the past where it belongs. Fly high into the new adventures that await you.
