Worried that Motherhood Will Change You Forever?

We all know the butterfly as a metaphor for transformation. It’s so overused that it’s a cliché.

Yes, yes, we say. We know that the caterpillar goes into its cocoon (pupa, to be exact) before doing the hard work of emerging as a butterfly. So, therefore, yes, yes, we know that there’s a certain amount of going inward involved in transformation. We also know that it’s hard work to pump those new wings full of enough strength to set us flying into our new life.

Sound a lot like new motherhood?

Well, here’s something you may not know unless you happened to have been a primary school teacher at some point in your life. Once the caterpillar creates that pupa, its entire body turns to goo inside. Seriously! It doesn’t just grow new parts, like a tadpole becoming a frog. No. It completely dissolves into formlessness, and then somehow everything gets put back together and solidifies in a new and different way.

Sound even more like new motherhood?

So for those of you in that formless goo stage; the ones who, despite loving beyond belief your new little bundle of miracles, still feel like you’ve somehow become no more than a milk spigot; who wonder what happened to the spunky, independent girl you used to be, and who fear that your entire life will be like this forever no matter how many people reassure you that THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS, I tell you this:

This formless stage is necessary for you to evolve into the mother and the woman you are yet to be. This is the time for all former identities to melt away. That feels uncomfortable at best, and downright depressing at worst. But fighting it and trying to hold onto those identities and that other life, despite the overwhelming evidence that you will never again be the same, is like opening up the pupa before the butterfly is ready to emerge. It wrecks the whole process. (And kills the butterfly, by the way.)

Luckily we are a bit heartier than your average butterfly, and resisting this change won’t necessarily kill us. But it will delay the growth that was ours for the taking at this crucial time.

So embrace the in-between-ness. Trust that you are in the process of coming back together in a new and powerful way. You will never be the same again, and what a wonderful thing that is.