Wings

This is one of my more difficult posts because I am exposing my weakness. Over the last several weeks, I am noticing a pattern of soaring highs and crashing lows. It took awhile for me to accept that I could not control the falls, but until I did, I couldn't begin exploring the cause.

This is the pattern of a new butterfly. It is a clique, but it fits my situation. I'm not referring to the new, beautiful creature, but to exercising new, inexperienced wings. For the butterfly to gather strength, it must fight and struggle into it flight. Without the pain there is no ability to soar on the wind.

I am learning to use a new set of emotional wings. There is pain and danger involved. My initial reaction is to draw back inside to a place of relative safety. However it is place of death not safety. Just as the butterfly must fly to strengthen its wings or die, I need to fly into my new emotions to explore and experience them or die. That death is not physical but in its own way is just as dangerous. I will fall and that will hurt. The deeper I go or to follow my analogy the higher I fly the greater the risk and the pain of the fall. People will let me down; I will misread others. All of these experiences hurt but all growth is painful.

At times I will fall into a spiral that feels and is out of control, but that same spiral will take me to places I've never imagined. That is both the joy and danger of strengthening my wings. It is also the only way to move into a full, complete life. I am making the choice to accept my inability to control this process, and to accept that I will fall. But I also choose to grow stronger by exercising these emotional wings so I can soar on the wind. How can I ever know how far and high they will take me if I don't exercise them?