The Caterpillar Perspective: Self Torment

Part 1 of 3: Becoming Your Inner Butterfly

Photo by Beckett Ruiz on Unsplash

I feel like for so long, I was caught up in the thoughts of “what if”, leading me into these unrealistic thinking patterns and ideas that I started building around my life. In the end these ideas had led me closer to where I needed to be within my spiritual growth and understanding of the world, but further away from the desires I had longed for. (You have to learn somehow, am I right?) I longed to feel excited, alive, loved… I wanted to take on something new. I wanted to take this voyage of life with someone. I wanted a support system that was so strong it was un-breakable.
Although unrealistically, as I myself couldn’t even be reliable, supporting, or able to provide the love that I was looking for to anyone else or myself. I could hardly understand my feelings, emotions, and didn’t love myself nearly as much as I thought. The respect and desires I wanted were impossible without fulfilling my own needs to myself first.

Photo by Micah Williams on Unsplash

Phase 1: Destruction

I went on these impulsive tangents, fighting myself constantly. (Insert eye roll. Isn’t your worst enemy always yourself?) I pushed people away, I built walls, and I allowed myself to escape into the world of toxicity. I let go of the light, and found my way to a tunnel of darkness. The kind of darkness that tricks you into thinking you are happy…that you are free and living a life that is the best for you. I tricked myself into thinking that this was freedom. Although, while I poured toxins into my body, I was also binding myself into a padded wall. The happiness & freedom that I went into the tunnel with, slowly started to disappear. The toxic sludge I filled my body with was the only thing that helped me function… happily. I was no longer soberly happy. I lost sight of what I was actually searching for in the first place…

Slowly I lost sight of the (ideal) career I wanted to pursue, I stopped caring about the moral status I held for myself, and the worst of all? I stopped following my path with God. All the times the devil had chased and scared me, he finally…