{source}

So many people are not happy with where they are and what they are. They want change, but they don’t want to take action. They want a different life. They can see it, taste it, imagine it, but they don’t want to die to the life they have and the self that they are identified with in order to make room for it.

The fact and Universal law is this, you can’t have what is out there if you are clinging to what is. You can imagine it all you want. Wish for it. Pray for it. Meditate on it. But it will never come to you unless you take action on your part. You must change and transform in order to rise above and meet something greater.

You can’t put on this grand, new life, full of so much love and everything else you have ever wanted if you don’t grow into it.

You are where you are at this moment in time as a result of what you have gone through in the past. If you are awake on your spiritual journey and you look way back to the different ways of being you have embodied, you will see that you have changed many times. And if you reflect upon this with open eyes, you will learn that whenever you came to embody a greater sense of self and being you had to let go of old thought patterns, behaviors, and identities to get there. You did something. You died to the self you knew and you took a leap of faith, believing that that sacrifice would be worth it in order to have what you needed to become. You jumped into the unknown. Was it scary as hell? To the lower self that had to die, you bet it was! Was it worth it? Yes!

Many of us have been consciously working on ourselves for years, even decades, and let me tell you, it doesn’t get easier. The things we come to face awaken us to ever deeper fears that we need to face and surrender, and an ever greater self that we want to embody. It is a continual process of transformation– if you want it to be.

A lot of people are okay with staying at a certain level of consciousness and awakening and are satisfied with that. Perhaps it is even all that they are meant to take on in this lifetime. Others have tasted that sweet transformation and become enticed by it into seeing more and more changes in their lives. It’s almost as though they can’t help it and as though something deeper is calling to them to grow more and more… and more.

I wanted to share this post today to inspire those of you who know that they want more. They can see for their lives something greater. The picture is there. They can feel it coming to them, and yet they are tired. They have died to their known self so many times already that they almost feel like the next time just might kill them. They have faced fear after fear, after fear, realizing each time that it does indeed get harder, and as they are getting older they really wonder if they are cut out to continually transform.

But the fact remains that they know. They know what they need to do and they also know that on the other side of every fear lies everything that they want to, and are meant to, step into. They have seen it in their lives many times before. Their purpose is ever above them. It is not personal, but Universal and so, they feel as if this death to self is a sacrifice for humanity.

They could always choose to stay where they are. At least they want to believe that. But deep down and with all of their experience in life already, they can’t silence the beckoning of their inner being. They know that beyond themselves is a greater purpose for their lives. People to meet and inspire. Love to give and receive.

For those of you who know of what I speak, I implore you to know that you are not alone. There are many of us who understand and even if we never physically meet, we can sense each other as a sort of soul tribe. We are here for each other and we understand and support each other in spirit.

The butterfly is a beautiful spiritual image that has been given to us to show us what it is to die to the known self and be reborn as a new creature. For us humans, we not only undergo one transition, like the caterpillar, but many.

Still, it will be our choice. What lessons do we want to learn? What things do we want to overcome in this human lifetime? If there are many you have already overcome, there is always more to learn and more to face if you want to, but that is where our freewill as humans comes into play.

We can pray and ask for anything we want and we will be given it. The truth is that there will always be a part for us to play and a life offered to us that we will have to grow into every time. It won’t be a magic, wave-of-the-wand type of spiritual transformation that will take place, but a transformation that will require difficult introspection, acceptance, forgiveness, release, faith, belief, and then, finally, transformation.

When people only wish for magical intervention they miss seeing the signs and guidance that always occurs when we open ourselves up to anything new in terms of spiritual growth. They ask and then they become unbelieving because they didn’t see what was being offered to them in response to their inquiry.

Ask and it is given, is a very powerful truth. It is given, but will you then open your spiritual eyes to the steps you have to take on your part, whether that is something as grand as losing everything you know or as simple as reaching out and grabbing it; making a phone call, letting go of an old job, giving up certain foods to change your diet, or reading a new book.

Sometimes it is not so hard, other times it is more difficult, but it is always, always worth it!

Know that with spirit there is always deeper to go and an infinite number of times that we can die and be reborn.

In order for a butterfly to be born of the cocoon, it first has to undergo a horrible state of being squeezed so tight that its blood is pumped to its wings before it emerges and learns to fly. You may want to set a cocooned butterfly free and feel great compassion for the creature if you had to witness what it had to go through in order to be able to be born again and gather strength to use its wings. And so it is with us, before we are able to be reborn and grow in strength to use our wings, we must go through times of trial and tribulation, even feeling as though we may die. But it is in this transition, in this squeezing of life upon us, that we are transformed. And without that preceding difficult circumstance, we would never be able to grow and use our wings.