The Squirrel Who Tried To Be A Butterfly

Deep Philosophical Question of the Day

When is it okay for a squirrel to accept their squirrelness and to stop trying to be a butterfly?

Really, I'm serious. These were my first thoughts upon awakening this morning. Okay, my second thoughts, as my first thoughts were about how much I want to quit e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. This is usually the PTSD speaking, and I know it, but having just come through a rather grueling bout of PTSD fueled by the anniversary of death of my male progenitor and crafting a sermon on Evil I have to preach in a few days, I really needed more than a 2 day breather between bouts. I don't get very many PTSD-free or PTSD-manageable days, no matter how hard I keep working on brain re-wiring.

I am so tired of every day feeling like such a battle. A battle with the PTSD (actually, it is DTD--Developmental Trauma Disorder--something which never gets much better because of the age at which it began), a battle with food/weight/body image, a battle to keep growing and doing and being and whatever else -ing word you can imagine.... always better. Always more positive, more something that I am not right now.

We talk a lot about self-acceptance and being kind to ourselves, but when does that apply at this level? When do I finally get to say, "I am a squirrel. I can occasionally perform death-defying leaps from limb to limb to avoid the danger awaiting below in the jaws of the ferocious barking dog on the ground, but I will n.e.v.e.r. be a butterfly."

So all these things I am doing, are they being kind to me? Are they furthering my self-love and acceptance? Or are they subtle messages telling me I am still not good enough, and I will never be good enough, until I am a butterfly? And yet, I do not have butterfly DNA. I am, at best, a common squirrel.

When, my friends, is it okay to simply accept being a squirrel, and get on with the business of squirrel things, while the butterflies around me fly freely in the sky? When is that okay?

When are the well-meaning "life coaches" screaming at us from the sidelines that we can do it just push through it, no pain no gain, go one step further today than you did yesterday, do more, run faster, leap higher.... when is this helpful and when does it become borderline abusive?  When does it further our journeys and when does it actually do damage because it denies the deeper reality of DNA that we will never overcome?

When is it simply okay to be a squirrel in a common squirrellyness, a cute forest creature at best and a pesky house pest at worst? When is it okay to accept the limitations of the hand I was dealt, to know I have given it my all to overcome, and that a few years ago was as good as it will ever get for me, and trying to get back to that level is damaging me? Or that trying to reach forward to new levels is simply unrealistic and impossible, and to keep trying trying trying is harmful?

When can I stop putting so much energy into becoming and just relax into being? When will who I am, flaws and squirrellyness and all, without trying to be better, but just to be my best as I am right now, be okay? Enough? Accepted?

When do I finally get to relax into the arms of being without dragging along all the plans I have for becoming?

Perhaps this is the darkest part of the night before the dawning of a new day, or perhaps it is just the dawning of reality as it will always be. I don't know.

What I do know is that I am tired of every day containing so much struggle to overcome limitations and become better.

Yisrael, aka Jacob, wrestled all night in the darkness with an unnamed foe. I believe it was the darker aspects of himself with which he was wrestling. Jacob was by no means a man without some serious and deep flaws. He grew up in a very dysfunctional home where manipulation, control, and subterfuge reigned. He himself had practiced deceit to manipulate others and his future, because he had learned how to do so from his own mother.

On his darkest night, unable to sleep, before facing again the twin brother whom he had cheated out of his birthright by deceiving their father, Jacob wrestled. And wrestled. And wrestled. As dawn was about to break, his unnamed foe decided to call it a draw. Neither had been the clear winner in the struggle. Jacob refused to let his foe leave without granting him a blessing. He was blessed, and given a new name--Yisrael, G!d wrestler--but the price he paid was a permanent limp.

Even in our struggles to grow through the darkness and into a better place, we are often left with a limiting wound which is simply insurmountable, unfixable.

At some point, we all face our squirrelness, finally seeing that we were not born with butterfly DNA.

For myself, I need to stop trying so hard to be better. I simply am who I am, flaws, wounds, PTSD, fibromyalgia, and all. They limit me. They always will. These things are simply unfixable. No surgery can correct the very faulty brain wiring that was beaten and abused into my cranium even before I could talk. The fibromyalgia, too, even though only recently named and accepted by doctors, I have displayed symptoms of from childhood, and 50+ years of fibromyalgia is entrenched. It just is. The dysfunctions I learned I have un-learned as much as possible, and now, at the dawning of the morning, I am left with the limp.

I am worn out from all the constant trying to be better. Better than what? Who I already am?

Even G!d's name, Ehy!h Asher Ehy!h, I Will Be Who I Will Be.... was that a recognition of an unending growth pattern, or was it a recognition that at some level, it is about BEING and not about BECOMING?

At my most basic level, I will be who I will be, and today, who I will be is the squirrel. I will never be nor can I ever become a butterfly. A squirrel is just going to have to be good enough.

And really, what kind of world would it be if we only had butterflies? Don't we need the squirrels, too?

One thing that always bothered me about the whole "past lives regression" trend was that everyone seemed to have been a king or queen or some kind of royalty or Very Special Person in their past. No one did a past life regression and then talked about being a commoner! Well, I'm pretty sure I was a commoner. Why is that not okay? Why must we all be a butterfly? When we will simply accept being a squirrel?

This morning, I am ready to stop trying to be a butterfly I know I can never be. Just as it would be laughable for me to announce today my plans for being an Olympic gymnast, it is also laughable for me to be a butterfly. It is time to accept reality and stop waking up to a battle every day. When my days are more about the struggle to become "better" than about the reality of being who I am, flawed and limited and never-a-butterfly, I think I've got it all wrong.

For me, I'm going to stop working so hard at chasing an elusive dream. I'm going to be content with my squirrelness. Even if I were able to become a butterfly, I likely would think I wasn't purple enough or couldn't fly high enough anyway. That self-improvement stuff never ends. Not until we are bold enough to stop the madness and accept who and how we are, and finally let go of the struggle against ourselves.

Perhaps it is far braver to accept one's squirrelyness, because the constant trying to become something else is based on fear and running from reality.... perhaps I do a far braver thing accepting my squirrelness.

This morning, I am Yisrael, and here is my limp to prove it.....