You Can’t Do It Alone

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. ~Charles Dickens

by: Donna R. Wood

Like the butterfly, we create our own prisons; and like the butterfly it is only through our own fortitude, will, and desire will we free ourselves. The butterfly has an advantage; it breaks through the walls through instinct. It just knows at the right time that it must emerge and fly, or it will die. Contrary to popular belief, butterflies are not social insects. They live each day flitting to and fro, alone. (The great Monarch migration is not a social activity.)

People, however, are social creatures. We do not just desire the company of others, we need others. We seek out those who think, look, and feel the same way we do. This can serve in one of two ways: freedom or continued imprisonment.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who you want with you, and those who you don’t. Who do you want on your team? Those who would rather see you miserable like they are? Or, those who are willing to lift you up and carry you with them? My mother has told me, since the time I was young, “Surround yourself with useful people.“

A few years ago, I got my wings clipped on both sides by people whom I had grown to trust. This threw me into a deep chasm of self-doubt, fear, second-guessing, and mistrust. I found myself spiraling out of control, until I heard the bars of my self-made prison clang shut behind me.

In a brief moment of survival instinct, I sought out the key to unlock the door. I made my cry out into the world, and the key was thrown to me by an unlikely benefactor. Sometimes, although another possesses the key, it is not their responsibility to unlock the door. In fact, they can’t. Especially if we are clutching the door shut with all our might, covering the key hole. He threw me the word, betrayal. I knew the second I received it that my whole world was about to crash down around me. I knew that the walls were about to implode and I was going to be crushed under the rubble.

Knowledge is power. That one simple word was the power that I needed to take action, or be lost to the ruins of my chrysalis. Asking for help is not in my nature. I was brought up a boot-strapper much like the rest of the people my age in North Dakota.

At this point I was so broken and comfortable in the midst of my chrysalis; I had to make a decision. I took the key and sought out another who could help me learn to use it. It turned out the key that was thrown to me was the master key to my life. It unlocked a lot of doors that had been closed years ago, although the toxicity from those events had been seeping through the cracks into my life the whole time.

If you do not take another thing away from this posting, please take this: You can never be free until you clean up the toxic waste from your past – and even from your present.