THE EMPEROR MOTH

A man found a cocoon of the Emperor Moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared - for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point. Deciding something was wrong, the man took the scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen but the wings small and shriveled. The man expected that, in a few hours, the wings would spread out in their natural beauty but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings. The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are nature's way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The ‘merciful’ snip was, in reality, cruel.

Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need…..

I have had my fair share of struggles, but being able to learn from them can be really powerful in personal development. It is often said that we can learn more from failure than we can from success, but seeing past our emotional response and allowing logic to process the learning, can be a challenge.

What are some of the struggles that you have had to face and what learning can you take from them?

Reflection, even if time has passed from the event, can allow us to look at things from different perspectives. We can put the learning into the 'tool box' and recall it when next time we find our self in a challenging situation. This contributes to growing our Resilience or our Response-Ability.