Guest post by Teresa Romain

Recently, I rediscovered a quote I first heard many years ago. It hit me in my gut and my heart as much this time as it did when I first read it. It’s an excerpt of a conversation between two of the characters in Trina Paulus’ book, Hope for the Flowers:

“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked.

And the response was…

“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar”.

Bottom line, the key to accessing and experiencing greater levels of abundance in your business and your life – especially financially – is desire.

You have to WANT it – more than you want the comfort and familiarity of what you have in your life right now. You have to WANT it more than your desire to “look good” or “do things right”, i.e. to not make a mistake. Your desire for abundance and prosperity needs to be stronger than your desire to be liked, to be just like everyone else, to “fit in”.

You have to want it enough to pick up the phone and make a phone call when you’d much rather “veg” and watch television. You have to want it enough to ask someone if they’d be interested in your product and/or business despite your fear that they will say no. You have to want it enough that you’re willing to feel rejected and disappointed and frustrated at times.

Your desire for abundance – at all levels – has to be strong enough that you’re willing to act on it despite any knots and nausea you may feel in your gut and despite the fears and challenges you encounter.

You have to want to FLY more than you want to be a caterpillar. You have to be willing to take the risk of letting go of what you have and what you know and who you know yourself to be. Bottom line, you have to want to experience greater abundance so much that you are willing to give up your thoughts of lack, limitation, not enough and scarcity – especially in terms of yourself!

If you want to access and experience greater abundance, you need to be willing to let go of your need to be “right” about what life is like, what people are like, what your “reality” is, and all the reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t be abundant.

You see, you have to want to experience abundance so much that you are willing to give up your excuses, rationalizations, justifications, complaints and all the people or things you blame for the fact you do not have the success and abundance – especially financially – that you say you want.

You can be “right” about all the reasons why you can’t fly OR you can actually start flying. You can be “right” about all of the reasons you don’t have the abundance and success you want OR you can begin experiencing abundance and success.

It’s a question of FOCUS. Are you focused on flying and being a butterfly or are you focused on what you might have to give up, your fears, your challenges, your comfort zone?

Are you focused on flying or on no longer being able to crawl?

It all comes down to this question, my friend…

What do you want – REALLY? And – how strong is your desire?

Each moment you get to choose. You can choose to take the next step and the next action toward flying as a butterfly or you can choose to remain a caterpillar – doing what you’ve always done or, at the least, what is relatively comfortable. You can continue to think the thoughts you’ve always thought and hang on to the judgments, beliefs and expectations you’ve always had or you can choose to think about flying in ways that support you to fly.

You must choose. It’s impossible to move forward and stay in the same place at the same time.

Then you must choose again and again and again and again. Then you must choose some more – again and again and again.

Remember, a caterpillar does not become a butterfly overnight. It slowly stops being a caterpillar and enters its cocoon (technically, it’s called a chrysalis) – not unlike that transition period you and I go through, that “in between” place where you’re not where you used to be but you’re not yet where you want to be.

Even the process of emerging from the cocoon takes time – and is not without struggle. But the struggle is what strengthens the emerging butterfly’s wings so that, when free of the confines of its cocoon, it can fly.

It’s all about the strength of your desire…to fly, to be abundant, to be free.

Perhaps we can rewrite Trina Paulus’ quote to say…

“How does one become whole, free and abundant?” you ask.

The response is…

“You must want it so much that you are willing to give up being less than who you really are”.

Is your desire that strong?

Are you willing to give up being less than who you really are – and all of your excuses, limitations, and rationalizations that keep you “crawling” so that you can start to fly?

You cannot access and experience abundance by hanging onto scarcity.

Are you willing to let go… and start flying?