Life Transformation and Other Lessons Butterflies Can Teach Us
Wisdom I've gained from watching and researching butterflies
Butterflies remind me that transformation is always possible, even when we feel stuck in our current reality and are afraid to take the risks necessary to change it. We may not like some aspects of the way things are, but those aspects are familiar and we’ve learned to tolerate them.
We also don’t know how to transition from the life we have now to a new one or whether that new life will actually be better than our current one. We may not even believe a different kind of life is possible, at least not for us.
The many transformations a butterfly makes throughout its life, from the moment it leaves its egg and crawls off as a caterpillar to the time it spends confined in a cocoon or chrysalis to the day it emerges as a dramatically different animal and flies away fascinate me.
So do other aspects of the lives of butterflies that I believe humans could learn from and apply to our lives.
I often stop to admire the butterflies I see when I walk. Once I stood still and watched monarchs on a flower bush for so long that a concerned man asked me if I was okay. I assured him that I was fine; I was just mesmerized by the butterflies.
These are a few of my best photos and the lessons I think the butterfly species pictured can teach us.
Title image: American lady butterfly
The American lady not only looks quite different as a butterfly than it did as a caterpillar. It also looks very different when its wings are closed (as they are in my photo) than it looks when its wings are spread open! See for yourself here.
That difference reminds me to look beyond a person’s outward appearance to discover their inner beauty.
It also reminds me that the image people present to the world rarely matches the image they reveal to their closest friends and family.
When we compare ourselves to someone else and wish we could be more like them, it’s not a fair comparison. We see the surface image they display, which looks more appealing than the inside view we have of our lives because the less desirable aspects of theirs aren’t visible to us.
Monarch butterflies
Did you know that monarchs can produce four generations in a single summer? The first three generations of these butterflies live for only two to six weeks, but the fourth can live as long as nine months.
That fourth generation is the one that migrates to California or Mexico for the winter. Their mass migration, and the way they huddle together closely for warmth once they arrive, remind me that we need each other to survive.
Another fascinating fact about monarch butterflies is that when their larvae hatch they eat their own eggshells along with the milkweed plant on which their eggs were laid.
The very things that once provided a safe home become food they must consume in order to live and go on to become butterflies.
I think humans can learn an important life lesson from that. There are times in each of our lives when a place, job, or person that used to meet our needs no longer does, at least not in the same way.
The safe home they gave us during an earlier stage of our lives becomes something we don’t want or need anymore. We either leave it behind or make the changes necessary for it to nourish and sustain us in new ways.
Either way, we use what we have learned as food for our continued growth.
Queen butterfly
The queen butterfly, like the monarch, begins its life on a milkweed plant which it later eats. The milkweed plant produces a toxin that these butterflies sequester in their bodies.
That toxin gives them an unpleasant taste and can sicken or even kill many other animals. Those would-be predators quickly learn to avoid them!
What I find fascinating is that these butterflies have genetic mutations that make it possible for them to safely ingest and store the toxin. Scientists have recently discovered that some of their predators have evolved to have the same mutations!
You can read more about those mutations and how researchers identified them here.
The lesson for us? Like these butterflies and other animals, we are capable of evolving to meet life’s challenges. We can either avoid toxic people and environments or adapt in ways that make us better able to tolerate them.
Transformation is always possible
One of my favorite movie quotes is this one from Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way.” It’s in response to an assurance from the park’s director that there is no way the dinosaurs could possibly breed because they were all genetically engineered to be females.
Dr. Ian Malcolm, the character played by Jeff Goldblum who made that memorable statement, also said this:
If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.
I think that’s a perfect summary of the life lessons butterflies teach us. They literally break free and expand to new territories when they hatch from their eggs and again when they emerge from their chrysalises.
They also migrate to a new location and stay close to each other for warmth and safety when necessary. They evolve so their bodies can tolerate the toxins they must eat to survive. They transform dramatically as they move from one stage of life to the next.
We can transform our lives, too. We can make whatever changes are necessary to move from one stage of our lives to the next.
We can deal with the toxic people and situations that we all face and decide whether to leave them or change how we respond to them.
We can choose to admire the beautiful diversity of our outward appearances and make it safe for everyone to reveal their inner beauty, too. We can transform not just our own lives but the world. It may not be easy or happen quickly, but it IS possible.
Note: I confirmed the type of butterfly in each photo and facts about their life cycles on this wonderful website: butterfliesathome.com. The site’s pictures of the butterflies as caterpillars illustrate just how dramatic transformations can be!
If you’d like extra support as you take the risks and make the sacrifices that may be necessary to transform your life, please reach out to me! I’m a certified NAMI Connection Recovery Support Group Facilitator and former pastor who offers coaching and other services. DM me on Substack (or reply to this email if you’re a Changing Lives subscriber) for more details.