Feel like Butterfly Soup these days? You’re not alone.
What personal transformation really feels like — and how to get through it
The world as we know it is ending.
I don’t open with a statement like that to startle you, or scare you, or fear-monger.
I say it because I want to acknowledge how a lot of us feel right now.
We can all feel it...something big is shifting.
We’re not sure where we’re headed. The old rules don’t seem to apply anymore.
Uncertainty like this is hard. And scary.
But these times might be the most important—and best—thing that ever happens to us.
I mean it.
Something genuinely enormous is happening. Not just in international relations, or systems of government; not just to the economy, or industries, or job markets. Not just to our natural environments, or to our oceans; not just to our forests, our soil, our planet.
Something bigger is happening within it all. Inside the story that we’ve been living collectively. The story that told us what was important, what we were supposed to be doing here, and what a well-lived life was supposed to look like.
That story is dissolving.
And in its place?
Right now, all that most of us can see and feel is the dissolving.
If you’re feeling somewhere in between who you were and who you’re becoming—if your footing feels less certain than it used to, if you’re asking questions you didn’t used to ask, if the path that once seemed obvious now seems unknown; if you have a sense that something much more might be about to be asked—or required—of you in the times ahead...you’re not alone.
This depth of change can be tough to go through. Frightening. Confusing. Depressing.
Painful. Very, very painful at times.
But I assure you: if you sometimes find yourself feeling completely overwhelmed or lost; if some days, you’re not quite so sure you can even go on...there’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re not broken. In fact, these kinds of feelings during these kinds of times can be a very, very good sign.
They’re a sign that you know, deep down, that things are supposed to be different. And you’re not wrong.
Here’s more crazy news: the world isn’t broken either.
Even though I know it feels like it...oh boy, does it ever feel like it.
What’s going on is that right now, we’re going through the very hardest phase of all when we have to navigate change.
We’re turning into butterfly soup.
What actually happens inside the chrysalis
We’ve all heard the analogy. Deep personal transformation is like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. ‘You have to let go of who you were, to become who you’re meant to be’...blah blah blah.
Yes, it’s a beautiful idea.
It’s also, as I’ve come to understand, wildly underestimated in its implications.
A caterpillar comes into the world by eating its way out of the egg that housed it while it was becoming. Then it just eats and eats and eats, until one day it starts to feel a yearning to hide itself away from the world. It goes and finds what it deems to be a safe place to rest, grasps onto the plant with its last pair of hind legs, gently lowers itself completely upside down, and spins itself into a protective cocoon.
But most people don’t know what actually happens inside that chrysalis.
The caterpillar doesn’t just cozy up and start to grow wings. It doesn’t gradually sprout antennae or change its colour while otherwise remaining itself.
What happens is far more radical—and far more similar—to this particular moment in human history.
The caterpillar dissolves inside the chrysalis. Almost completely.
Its digestive juices, which once broke down the leaves it ate, now begin to break down its own tissues...literally destroying itself, from the inside out. Inside the chrysalis, almost everything that made the caterpillar what it was, disintegrates.
Except for a few crucial parts like its nervous system, its airway, and some muscles that remain to keep it alive throughout the process, it becomes—quite literally—soup.
I haven’t looked for any studies on butterfly pain tolerance, but if I had to guess—given its nervous system still in place—this would feel nothing like a ‘beautiful transformation’, from the caterpillar’s perspective.
This would hurt. A lot.
And even though I’m comparing this painful process to the way a lot of people have been feeling lately (including me until very recently), believe it or not, I’m saying it here because it’s one of the most hopeful things I know to offer you.
Here’s why—
The only part of the caterpillar that remains after this ‘melting down’—the only thread of connection between the caterpillar it was and the butterfly it’s becoming—is a small collection of cells called imaginal buds. These cells were there inside the caterpillar the whole time, lying dormant...waiting.
They’re what carry the genetic code for what the caterpillar was always meant to become.
It’s from these tiny little cells, out of that hot mess of disintegrated soup, that the beautiful butterfly begins to build itself.
For a while, you’ll see nothing but the opaque shell of the chrysalis. No sign of what’s happening inside. Zero visible progress. But ever-so-slowly, the chrysalis will become more and more transparent, and the shape of the butterfly will start to show through as the process continues to unfold.
Once the butterfly is fully formed—although still very fragile—it will gently begin to wriggle its way out of its protective cocoon. Watching it struggle at this stage can make us want to help it along, but we mustn’t: their “struggle” is actually a vital physiological process. It needs the struggle to pump its fluids fully through all the veins in its wings, which helps make them strong. If it’s not given the chance to do the work of emerging by itself, its wings may remain crumpled and weak, rendering it unable to fly.
Even when it does finally emerge, it hangs there and rests for a while: getting its bearings, warming itself in the sun, letting the fluid fill its wings, eventually quivering them gently...testing.
Only once it feels strong enough will it set out on its first short test flight.
We are all in the soup together
I’ve been thinking about this process for a long time. I first wrote about it over a decade ago, when I was navigating one of my own ‘seasons of soup’ during a period of personal and professional dissolution (one of several throughout my life) that—at the time—felt a lot more like abject loss than transformation.
What I understood intellectually then, but now know deeply and experientially, is that turning into soup isn’t the problem.
The soup is part of the process.
And right now, we are all in the soup together.
Not just individually—though many of us are navigating profound personal transitions as well— career pivots and further anticipated changes with economic shifts and the rise of AI; relationship changes; empty nests; and questions about purpose that feel suddenly louder and more urgent than they used to.
We’re also experiencing “being in the soup” culturally, collectively, and as a civilization.
The structures we’ve traditionally built our identities around—work, family, spirituality, even gender—are all being questioned at a speed and scale that no previous generation has had to contend with.
And artificial intelligence isn’t just changing how jobs are done, or which jobs exist, or whether any jobs will continue to exist...
It’s rapidly bringing a question to the surface that has always been waiting for us beneath the “busyness” that we’ve either worn as a badge of honour, or used as a claim for sympathy: who are you when ‘what you do’ no longer defines you?
It’s not a comfortable question.
It’s also, I believe, one of the most important questions we’ll ever be forced to ask ourselves.
What the caterpillar knows
So—what DO you do when you find yourself in the soup?
Over the years, through my own transformations and from walking alongside others through theirs, I’ve noticed that the process inside the chrysalis contains much more wisdom than we give it credit for.
Here’s the guidance I’ve gleaned from one of my most-respected sages—the lowly and mighty caterpillar:
Digest your experiences fully. As the caterpillar grows, it eats constantly and doesn’t waste a thing...not even the shell it came from. Every experience you’ve had, every goodbye, every chapter that’s ended (or that’s in the midst of ending right now) contains something worth digesting and transmuting into the fuel that helps you move forward. The question isn’t what happened to you; it’s what have you learned from it? Write down all the ways that it happened for you, how it served you, and what lessons you’ll carry forward from it into whatever comes next.
Acknowledge what you need. Then go get it, ask for it, or create it. The caterpillar builds a cocoon, creating a protected space for the most vulnerable part of its process. Protecting yourself isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom. If you’re going through a dissolving phase, your most important job is to identify what you need to feel safe and supported while the transformation does its work. And just as the caterpillar retains its nervous system, its airway, and some muscles to help it get through, support yourself by regularly calming your nervous system, exercising to keep your body strong, and breathing—which may sound obvious, but it’s surprising how often we forget. Breathe deeply. Frequently. Pause right now and take just four deep breaths: four seconds in, eight seconds out, pause, repeat. Feel the difference? Do it often.
Fully allow the change. Don’t resist the soup stage. You have to go through it before you can get to the other side. I know it’s way easier said than done—it’s uncomfortable, it’s disorienting, and sometimes you don’t even recognize yourself or your life anymore. Which means it’s happening exactly as it’s designed to. The caterpillar doesn’t look like the butterfly, and it cannot be both things at once. Who you are becoming might be a little—or a lot—different than who you were. The resistance to and discomfort of ‘not recognizing yourself’ comes from having to let go of the parts of your identity that have completed their purpose for you. You’re supposed to feel untethered in the soup.
Trust the process, even when you can’t see the future. The caterpillar probably has no idea what’s happening to it, and it would be justified in its conviction that it must be dying a slow death. It can’t possibly imagine what it’s about to become next. The chrysalis is closed and dark for almost the entire transformation. No question, that’s a scary place to be. In the same way, you too may experience a ‘dark night of the soul’. You won’t always be able to see what’s forming. Maybe you can’t see it at all right now. This is where patience becomes a spiritual practice rather than just a virtue—not passive waiting, but active trust that something good is being built, even when you can’t see it and don’t understand it yet.
Know your own power. The caterpillar doesn’t wait for someone to release it from its egg; it eats its own way out. It doesn’t wait for someone to wrap it up and tuck it somewhere safe; it spins its own cocoon. It doesn’t wait for someone to come along and set it free from its chrysalis—it frees itself. All of which take determination, agency, persistence, self-care, courage, time, and patience...and maybe even a little faith. Lucky for us humans, we’re able (and are wise to) ask for support along our way...but remember that the struggle is where you grow stronger. The struggle serves you. If your current circumstances don’t allow you to be who you know you’re capable of being, remember that you always have more agency than your fears would have you believe. And sometimes, the ‘cages’ you perceive are just that: your perceptions. Examine which of your ‘limitations’ are absolute, compared to which are being created and reinforced by how you’re thinking about them before you start chewing through walls or hiding away from the world, waiting for someone to save you.
Follow what delights you. Every species of caterpillar has its own particular favourite type of plant leaf to eat. The eggs are laid on those preferred plants for the young to feed on. Adult butterflies feast on the nectar of the flowers from that same favourite plant. But there’s no default answer to what you should prefer (and it may indeed be something very different from what the rest of your family delights in). Only you can have that inner knowing of what you’re genuinely drawn to, what makes you feel most alive, what you want to pursue and fill your days with. What would you do if no one else minded, and no income depended on it? With the changes that international relations and AI have already brought (and have yet to bring, but are fast approaching), knowing what delights you and what’s important to you—including outside of your work—matters more now, not less. We are going to need far more of our hearts than our minds to guide us going forward from where we now find ourselves.
Emerge when it’s time. You cannot stay in your chrysalis forever. Though transformation is hard and new beginnings can feel scary, at some point your wings need air. The butterfly hangs for hours after emerging, getting its bearings—and that’s okay. Take the time you need. But your new self, your new life eventually needs to be lived, not just endlessly prepared for. It may feel nerve-wracking. It may feel premature. You may not feel ready. But when you keep your mind focused on ‘what if it did work out?’, it can feel downright exhilarating too. Eventually—ready or not—it’ll be time to spread your wings. Test them. Take your first wobbly flight and take your new place in this big wide world. Become who you really came here to be.
Your imaginal buds are already in you
Here’s what else I want you to hold onto, especially right now in this strange, disorienting and genuinely extraordinary moment in time we’re living through together: your ‘imaginal buds’ are already in you. The potential for everything you’re meant to be has always been inside you. They’re in all of us, and in all things. Everything that’s essential about who you are, even the things you’ve long lost sight of—your curiosity, your compassion, the things that have quietly delighted you throughout your life—none of that disappears in the soup. It waits. It knows. It’s preparing.
So build your vision for the life and the world you want to live in. Protect that vision and keep nurturing it while we navigate this often-difficult process of change. Most importantly, don’t let your dreams die inside you before they get to see the light of day.
Because as Richard Bach wrote in his book, Illusions*: What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
The world as we know it may be ending, but we are not at the end.
We have moved into the chrysalis.
It’s a whole new beginning.
Something beautiful is being built. Even now, even here, even amid all this darkness and pain and confusion and fear.
And even when you feel it most utterly, most deeply, and most completely, know this, my precious butterfly...you are never alone.
We are all here with you. Here for you. Holding you so tenderly inside the safety and warmth of love in our hearts. We’re rooting for you and cheering you on, eternally.
So keep the faith...in love, in joy, in beauty, in compassion and kindness, in peace; keep the faith in life itself.
Hold the vision of the most beautiful future you can imagine: for yourself, for the ones you love, and for the world. Trust the process. And know that everything, including your deepest dreams and your highest self, will emerge when it’s time.
If you find yourself wanting to explore what’s being asked of you in this particular season—the questions underneath the noise, and the thread that connects who you’ve been to who you’re becoming—I’ll soon be hosting a live one-hour workshop on Navigating Change, and I’d love to invite you to join. It’s exactly this territory that we’ll be exploring together, along with the guiding framework I’ve personally road-tested and used—time and again—to help me through my own transformations and help others through theirs. If you’re curious, details and registration are here. No charge.
You don’t need to have any answers yet. You just need to be willing to ask the questions.
Let’s gently become together.
~Kelly
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