Hey there,
This week's question comes from a reader named S:
"I've been feeling completely stuck. I know what I need to do but I can't make myself do it. I don't know if I'm lazy or scared or just broken."
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Here's what happens inside a chrysalis.
When a caterpillar pupates, it doesn't just grow wings inside a protective shell. It digests itself. Most of its body breaks down into an undifferentiated biological soup — imaginal cells, scientists call them, the seeds of the new form, floating in what used to be a caterpillar. The old structure has to fully dissolve before the new one can organize.
From the outside it looks like nothing is happening. From the inside, it's the most demanding thing the creature will ever do.
Stuck isn't nothing. Stuck is often the part where the old structure is coming apart before the new one has anything to show yet. The uncomfortable in-between where you've already stopped being one thing and haven't become the other thing and everyone, including you, wants to know what's taking so long.
The caterpillar doesn't push through the stuck part. It surrenders to it completely. The soup is not a failure state. It's the mechanism.
You're probably not lazy. You're probably not broken. You might just be in the part that has to go liquid before it can go anywhere.
Let it.
—Gabi & Bea
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