As I was kneeling on the floor rolled up, rocking and weeping with face cradled in my hands, there was no hope in me. The profuseness of my tears and the loudness of my wailing were fringe evidences of the storm in my heart, mind, and soul. In that given moment, I couldn’t even imagine a different reality. Long for it? Yes. Believe it to be possible? Not a hint. Nothing was there to provide another storyline, and the one I was in was shrouded in smoggy darkness.

What I didn’t know was that my meltdown moment was necessary for more of me to become. It wasn’t the first self-dissolving and it wouldn’t be the last. In my pain, I was completely unaware of what was there, waiting for this precise moment to begin developing. The dissolving was necessary for the formation to begin. (See “Behind the Magic Curtain – Part 2: Dissolved)

The chunky metamorphic soup created in the chrysalis on the way to a butterfly contains undissolved elements known as imaginal discs. These discs are key growth platforms for a butterfly to form. Interestingly, these discs don’t begin their work until the dissolving of the caterpillar has occurred. The soup is the signal for the imaginal to begin.

Originally discovered in the 1670’s by Jan Swammerdam, these epithelial sacs created a stir. Up until this point, it was believed that insects came into being by spontaneous generation. It was also believed that each “stage” of metamorphosis was a separate creature. Swammerdam, a Dutch biologist and microscopist, was convinced there was more than met the eye. It was at this point that Swammerdam’s biology, theology, and microscopy merged.

It was Swammerdam’s belief in a Creator that moved him to further explore the smallest of creatures. He wanted to understand them. What he found made a significant shift in the world of developmental biology. The impact of Swammerdam’s findings need not be isolated to biology. The awareness that a person (your non-biological self) goes through stages, yet as the same person is very valuable.

For over 60years, the concept of “true self” and “false self” has been applied to the various expressions of a person in given moments and situations. A spontaneous generation of self, if you will. I have come to believe otherwise. What I have observed is that who you are at any given moment is who you are in that moment.It is the true you, no matter what, no matter how unpresentable that may be. There is a reason for the “you” that is expressed right here, right now. You are an ever-developing being, yet always as a one-in-the-same person.

Consider again those imaginal cells found by Swammerdam. Like those cells, all along the way of your life, you are there. Dissolving, struggling, learning, growing, developing, but you all along the way. Every struggle and meltdown is you developing. Seeing the whole of your life journey as development, no matter what you are facing or enduring, can help you re-interpret how it all feels and appears. Such a view will allow you to sit in the soup of self-dissolving. From that vantage point of availability you can become keenly aware of so much more about your self than you would in fight or flight mode.

The signal is in the soup. There are elements of who you are meant to be that will only begin to develop and emerge as a result of self-dissolving. I no longer fear or avoid the meltdown moments, even the one’s rolled up and weeping on the floor. I find hope in the “imaginal discs” that are there, because I know more of me is there, waiting. Then, one day, like magic, a hidden part of me will appear from behind the magic curtain.

 
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