Continuing my slightly cranky rant against the typical response to grief, a repost, friends:
The butterfly: such a common symbol of transformation. All wiggly dark parts, all mysterious and hidden, erupting from its safe cocoon into the bright, winged world. Its wings like stained-glass windows. Its antennae cued in to the higher worlds. Transcending the limitations of its earlier form. The triumph of flight. The transformation inherent in every pore.
Phht. Hogwash.
It’s an insect. A gorgeous one, yes. A useful one, yes. But a guiding metaphor for grief? No.
No.
Now. I say this as someone who does, in fact, speak symbol. If you’ve ever talked to me for any amount of time, you know how I love metaphor. I can’t not speak in metaphor or story, when one presents itself. In fact, I learned some things about the evolution of the insect within the cocoon this week that have my mind and heart doing back-flips with metaphorical implications, not even to mention just the simple scientific coolness.
But it’s that common, expected, metaphor of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon that falls supremely flat when it’s shoved at you inside your grief.
Here’s why it doesn’t work:
- There’s that subtle implication that who you were Before grief happened in your life was somehow “less than” who you are now, or who you might become. Think caterpillar vs. butterfly: who gets all the press? Everyone wants the winged transformation, but no one wants the bug.
- Even well-meaning encouragement to become the butterfly! has its subtext: please become the butterfly already, because this whole cocoon thing has gone on too long. There is an impatience in those words, a desire to rush someone along and get back to the pretty parts of life. (there’s also the fact that not everyone needs cheerleading in their grief. They lost someone they love – that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their self-esteem, or their belief in themselves.)
- You can’t rush the cocoon. Have you ever opened up a chrysalis, wondering what’s inside? When exactly does the caterpillar become the butterfly? If you open up that chrysalis, you do not hasten the process of the becoming butterfly. What you do is destroy the darkness. You take away the environment within which deep, deep, change is happening. That cocoon is necessary. It is there for a reason. The changing heart, the changing life – they not only deserve a protected space, that protected space is required for whatever is to come.
- The butterfly is not all that. Transformation is not the goal of grief. It may seem like the goal if you’re on the outside looking in, thinking the person you love really just needs to embrace their inner beauty and transform already. But the reality is, transformation is not required. Beauty happens, or doesn’t happen, life continues, life changes, but no outcome is required. Not everyone comes through their grief “even better than before.” The butterfly, or the beauty, or the next phase of life: none of these are an end goal. None of these are a final destination.
I talk about this quite a bit in the audio program, “When Everything is Not Okay: Practices to Help You Stay in Your Heart & Not Lose Your Mind” – this idea that grief should transform you. That we expect grief to transform you. Some people do transform. And the truth is, also, plenty of people are not improved by grief. Some people die in their grief, or become smaller and harder in their grief.
I would guess that the vast majority of people don’t fall squarely into either camp: they are neither transformed nor destroyed. They simply continue to be who they are, carrying their love with them, into whatever new world comes next.
The truth is, you can’t force a metaphor on anyone. A symbol is only a symbol if you choose it yourself; if it resonates and speaks to you. No one can decide for another what has true, deep meaning for them. Before you go encouraging the one you love to become the butterfly, take a moment to see if that symbol actually fits. Ask. Wonder. Listen.
Grief support, true support, allows the person in pain to find their own way, in their own time, with respect for who they are, who they have been, and who they are as they become.
That’s the transformation. That’s the gift the witness can give.
You always capture what I find to be true in my grief. You highlight the difference between what those on the outside want to see happen and the reality of what is happening to those of us suffering the devastating loss of a loved one. Losing my son is not some opportunity for me to become a better person (or a butterfly). It is a disaster and my goal now is to find a way to keep on living. That doesn’t make me better or stronger or more enlightened. In fact, I have been robbed of my lifelong dreams and nothing will ever be able to replace the magnificent person in my life who is gone.
Exactly. Suffering is suffering, and it needs to be acknowledged as such, not glorified into some false “oh how lucky you are to grow in this way.”
<3
This metaphor is one that a friend who is a very good, giving person has given me since the death of my husband. Butterflies on the cards that she sends, checking in and wishing me a good day. Because it came from such a wonderful, authentic, loving woman, I took it well. I welcomed her butterfly metaphor greetings.
Now that I’ve read your writing on how grief does not get “transformed”, I’ve been rethinking the whole thing. Grief has not transformed me; I have changed because of what happened. I have changed because of who has not supported me, who has “dumped” me, who assumes how I am feeling in my pain, who has stuck by me, who tries very hard to support me and admits they don’t know how but are open about it with me, those who have disrespected and disbelieved me, those who encourage me, those who have simply disappeared. I have changed because my whole friggin’ life has been torn apart and nothing NOTHING is the same any more. Nothing. Many of the people, both family and friends, in my life have been butterflies themselves: they’ve transformed into non-family and non-friends who have flown away, leaving me nothing but a dried, used casing to clean up.
Now, in Year Four of my grief for my husband (Year Six for Dad, Year Two for Mom, Month Three for Stepmother–and that’s just family), and after reading your writing here, I see that I have not “transformed” at all in my grief. My grief has not “transformed” me. It has been a painful, frightening, lonely tearing at the cocoon that was once my life. I have been forced to face change, not become a beautifully floating bug. What is the lifespan of a butterfly anyway? I’m certain that mine will be longer than it’s life.
So well expressed, Jo. Thank you for putting those words ‘out there’ for me to read and agree with.
Thank you Jo this really helped me
I joined a grief group after I flunked my yearly physical, at the insistence of my doctor. He’s a different kinda guy/doctor. He believes it’s all connected from head to toe. The mental, emotional part is not separate, but rather it’s very much connected. He wondered why I didn’t call him when my husband had passed. I said who calls their doctor. He said you know better than that, we agree on most things, it’s all connected. So I agreed to “find” a grief group.
I searched for one that was not religiously based as I’m not religious, as in church going. I have my faith and consider myself very spiritual but I’m not into religion. I could not find a single grief group that was non religious. I did chat with the head of “grief share” and made it clear that I was not religiously inclined. She talked me into coming and give it a try.
It was as I knew it would be, full of semantics and platitudes. Bible study this or that, and if your not “through” your grief in two years, your probably in “compounded grief or clinically depressed.”
As I left that group at its end, I researched and I finally found refuge in grief! A breath of fresh air for lungs that were striving to take a breath! At the end of grief share, I was asked to tell the group where I was at in my “recovery so to speak.”
I said it feels like someone handed me a big ass messy clump of clay and I was suppose to put this clump of clay on a wheel, turn the wheel on and re-sculpt my life and I don’t know where the hell to begin.
Thank you Megan for creating refuge in grief, it was beyond needed, and is as it’s title says….. a refuge! 💖