Welcome to the Butterfly Principle. 

We are talking about teaching others the way we want to be treated. That means we have the power; we control how we teach other people to treat us. 

Often, we feel that the world is pressuring us as if other people are placing their expectations on us. 

We feel powerless to overcome those things sometimes. It's literally the other way around. 

It is our job to set boundaries and teach others how we want to be treated.

They always say to treat others how you want to be treated, but other people, if they're unhealthy, will probably treat you with the energy they think they deserve. 

It's not really going to work if you're dealing with unhealthy people. 

Maybe you're one of those unhealthy people. Maybe you come from a background where unhealthy was sort of the legacy your family left you. Lucky. Mine was that way.

 I understand if that is the case. That's not a judgment. It's really more I relate. 

I just had this great conversation with someone from the family legacy who says we all need to be stuck in our cocoons, and nobody gets wings to fly. 

That really will never sit well with us. 

We will feel strangled if we never develop our wings and burst out of our cocoons. Things that came to light in this conversation mainly were this cycle of toxic relationships. 

By the way, we'll talk about boundaries here in the near future, But boundaries are for unhealthy relationships. 

You don't actually have to have boundaries if you're healthy and the other person is healthy. 

Now you're operating from the standpoint of having standards, and standards are like I respect your boundaries or I respect your wishes. 

If there's mutual respect between people, then there's no need to set a boundary. 

This particular butterfly principle concerns toxic or unhealthy relationships. 

That's why it's important to give off the right signals and instructions, so to speak, that will help other people understand how you want to be treated, not how they want to treat you. 

That's where it gets a little messy. 

We keep thinking that they're not treating me right. They're not doing what I need them to do so I can be happy, quote, air quotes, they're happy. 

But it's nobody else's job but yours to make yourself happy. 

It's your job to fulfill the measure of your creation, even if you came from a toxic environment where there was chaos and emotional instability. 

We all have a responsibility to be as healthy as possible, and that's an ever-changing environment because we have many different facets in our lives. 

We have our significant others, our parental and child roles, and our co-worker or boss roles in the work environment. 

We have neighborhood roles and community roles to play, so some of those might be toxic, and the others might be healthy, and so the toxic ones they are because they're driving you crazy. 

There's too much confrontation or confrontation avoidance. 

Those are both things, and it's important to think about the areas of your life that are not satisfying to you. 

We can explore the areas of your life that are much more satisfying, or we can even them out and make them equal so they reflect one another. 

I know some people who make a lot of money but can't keep their personal lives together. I know some people who are just amazing friends, but they implode when it comes to earning a living.

When we become whole in every area of our lives, it is literally like getting our butterfly wings and flying free. 

You feel very free, and there's not much effort required. When butterflies fly, they really fly. They don't sputter around on the ground much unless they break out of their cocoon too soon. 

It's like a chicken; you never help it out of the egg. It won't develop and survive. 

Butterflies are the same way. They must struggle a bit to get out of the cocoon in order to survive. 

Then, it takes a couple of hours for their wings to dry, like there's this integration process from the cocoon into life. 

Let me back up a little bit and just talk about the cocoon itself. 

We all have a book of life. We've all agreed to have some sort of struggle in this life so that we can know what we don't want and work towards what we do want. 

When we know what we don't want, we'll kick and struggle a bit to figure it out. 

Some of us struggle less. 

The amount of time we struggle is shorter, and some of us take a long time. 

It's not that you're ever late. 

You're not late if you're struggling late into your midlife. 

You are on time. 

You literally couldn't have unfolded your wings sooner. 

You figure it out when you figure it out. That's all there is to it. 

You're never late to the party, so to speak. 

When we have this book of life and agree to have contrast in our lives so that we can find our way to the light, we can get out of the cocoon and fly free. 

We sometimes have situations that are part of the cocoon experience, and sometimes, we have people who are part of the cocoon experience. 

We're referring more to the people's experience, which helps you understand what the cocoon was for. 

Sometimes, when we have, say, our family is toxic, like there's just a lot of drama, there are people that are narcissists, there are codependent people, there are people that just always have victims, there are people that just couldn't be nice to save their life. 

Whatever was going on in your family history, or this could even be a work environment, or it could be a neighborhood thing, or friends, or whatever. You know who these people are in your life.

If this relationship isn't looked at as a benefit to you, then it's going to be toxic to you. That's like saying if you're sitting in the cocoon, assuming that others are holding you stuck, they've got their thumb on you, they always make you feel small, they're literally out to make you feel a little bit crazy. 

They're gaslighting. 

They're doing these things that are not acceptable behavior, and they don't come from healthy people, right? 

It's not healthy behavior if those things are coming, and you just hate them for it. 

You're just mad that they kept you stuck. 

They didn't let you out of the cocoon. They were hostage inside of this thing that was supposed to birth you. 

It was literally for you to make a transformation inside that cocoon. 

If you hate that part of your life, you'll never get your wings because you believe the cocoon was there to hurt you, hold you back, and stunt your growth. 

That's where your beliefs come into play. That's why it's so incredibly important for you to change those beliefs. 

If you believe that the cocoon or the people that formed up your cocoon family, so to speak, that there were toxic people, people's siblings or parents or caretakers or teachers or what have you, that they were there to show you how strong you could be.

They were there to show you this is an ugly life. 

You're like, yes, it is, but I think I want to do something other than have an ugly life. 

That would be your opportunity to thank them. Thank you for showing me so much about what I don't want in my life so I can finally go give myself permission to break free of the cocoon and go fly away. 

There's an element and a need for gratitude—appreciation, which is different. 

Gratitude is heavier because it's like, oh, look what I had to do to get here. I'm so grateful I'm here now. 

Appreciation is like, man, you've taught me everything I need to know to take another step. I appreciate it so much, and appreciation is more present. It's more in the now.

It's in the realization that, wow, what if I had wings all this time, but I was just so busy being mad at the cocoon for holding me hostage that I never even noticed that I had transformed from a caterpillar that had no means of leaving the ground to being a butterfly that could fly free and was not bound by the laws of gravity. 

Think about it: Is your mind holding you back because you just hated that part of your life that didn't give you the opportunity you thought you should have had to be like others where you felt appreciated? 

You felt loved, and you felt supported, and you felt valued, and you felt like the spotlight was on you and you were in need of nothing really. that nobody gets through this life without a challenge. 

I promise everybody has them; even if they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, they would come across something in their life that makes it feel very dissatisfying.

But I'm really referring to those of us who felt like their life was a waste. 

For example, the time that we spent was too hard, and we missed out on life. 

We missed out on opportunities to be happy. 

We missed out on opportunities to experience true friendship or experience to belong to groups or families or what have you.

If you think that you want a duo. That's sometimes how you know that your mind and belief system have been holding you hostage this whole time. 

If you believe that you wish you could have a do-over, even though you know that's not possible, you're always thinking about the past. 

You're always having these conversations in your head about, well, I would have said this to this person, and it was so wrong of them to behave that way towards me. It wasn't my fault; I didn't do it. 

If you're having these conversations where you're trying to rectify the past, even if it was the recent past, that's how you know that you're looking at the cocoon as the reason why you're still stuck. 

You're only as stuck as you want to be because if you have this desire to break free, to do something other than what your family's always done, I call them pattern breakers.

If you're a pattern breaker because you're no longer available to keep doing the same family pattern that has always happened. 

You want to set a different example, you want to make your contribution to the world; you want to be happy and engaged and looking forward to life and believing and hopeful and all those things. 

If that's what you want, you're a pattern breaker, and you're a butterfly. 

You're actually not one of the cocoon members. 

You're a butterfly, and you have wings. The only thing we need to do is stop needing to be in the cocoon. 

Sometimes, we don't believe we deserve to leave the cocoon. It's like, well, if I'm a butterfly, if I leave the cocoon, then I'm leaving behind all these other miserable people. 

Then they're phone bombing me, and they're text bombing me, and they're trying to get me to come back to the cocoon and be with them in their misery in the cocoon. 

You're like, you know, what if? What if I'm awake, and you guys are dormant? What if your sleepers and the cocoon is just sleeping? It's just a sleepy place. What if I'm a butterfly and I'm looking at you going, why do you want me to be the cocoon like you? 

Does that make sense? 

Some people are put here for our greater good, meaning they're going to squash us, berate us, shame us, and guilt us. 

They'll do everything possible to see if we will just not fly away, to hold us back. 

That is one of the greatest gifts they could ever give you. Because if you're like that, it's just so unsatisfying to expect that I have to do what they need me to do in order for them to be happy, even though we know it's an impossible task to make other people happy. 

It's not our job. 

Our only job is to match our desires and inner self and align with the person we were meant to be. 

That is our only job, and it's a big one.

I'm not trying to minimize it here, but it's not our job to manage other people's emotions about us and what we choose to do with our lives. 

It is not our job to manage our social image. 

Whatever they think about us, they will think about us because of who they are, not because of who you are. That's when it's important to go; oh, I actually don't need to stay stuck in the cocoon. 

I was born to break free from the cocoon. 

These people want me to play small so they don't feel bad about themselves. It's okay; they're here to help me. They're helping me discover what I don't want so I can do what I was born to do because that is what I want. 

Does that make sense?

This is a big idea because if our brain is focused on why we can't break free and all the reasons why our life is about other people and what they need from us, they keep taking from us and taking from us.

We don't have anything left to give like we're on the back burner, we're not practicing self-care anymore, we've been squashed, we've been manipulated, we've been controlled, and we feel like crap. 

That's just you believing that you deserve it, that you must stay there, and that you are one of them. 

If you just have this gut feeling, like this idea that just keeps popping up in your mind, that's like, ah, but maybe I could be happy. Maybe I could pull my life together. Maybe I could go do and have. 

Anything I set my mind on if I believe once and for all that I have the wings to fly to actually break free and do those things—that I could have financial freedom, find the love of my life, have healthy relationships and friends, and belong if I allowed myself to—there's just so much that we could go after if we could just give ourselves permission to leave the cocoon, thanking the cocoon. 

We're not hateful people. We are not people who are resentful by nature. That was developed in us. We're not annoying people. We're not annoyed people. 

We are becoming the essence of goodness and freedom and abundance like we're expanding all the time. 

If you ever stop expanding, It's because you're stuck in the cocoon and whatever that cocoon is for you. 

You're just making assumptions that it's the reason you're not breaking free rather than making the assumption that everything is possible for you because you've had the power to break out of the cocoon all along. Does that make sense? 

A butterfly is only going to do what a butterfly is built to do. 

A butterfly in the history of the natural process of a caterpillar from its own egg into the caterpillar, shedding its skin as it grows so it doesn't get crushed inside of its own skin and shedding until it's time to create the cocoon, to be inside the cocoon, to transform into a butterfly and for the cocoon to turn transparent and then the butterfly breaks free.

The wings dry, and then the butterfly is able to fly. Throughout that whole process, the butterfly never once decided it wasn't going to finish. 

If you are a butterfly, and I think we're all butterflies, But whether or not we believe we can break free of the cocoon that we are pointing at, we're looking at, that we're like, that's the reason why I can't fly. 

If you've ever done that, it is your lack of insight as to your true power. 

You have the power to break free. You have the power to do what you were born to do.

You have the power to pull yourself through this process of opening up the cocoon and emerging the butterfly, realizing that it's just a matter of time at that point before you fly.

You join all the other butterflies, and it's springtime, and everything's coming alive, and I'm telling you, nothing will make you feel more alive than that kind of personal growth, that kind of momentum, that kind of freedom. 

You're going to be like, oh my gosh, this has been available to me all this time. 

The only reason you're feeling stuck, smothered, or even suffocated in your life. 

It might not be the whole, every area of your life. It might just be certain areas of your life. 

If those are the feelings that you've had—you're frustrated, annoyed, or just angry—the wheels come off, you have tantrums, you have meltdowns like you start acting like a little child—that's totally a normal reaction to thinking that you are not allowed to leave the cocoon. 

It's okay. We're not judging those things. 

We're actually saying that would be a normal response because you are in such sharp disagreement with being stuck. 

The butterfly principle applies to the fact that you break free from the cocoon no matter what other people think of you. 

Whether they think it's time or the right way to emerge or that you can't because they need you to take care of them. Yeah, none of that's true.

When you emerge and get better, then guess what? 

Everybody's going to get better. 

Then you stop enabling other toxic people to treat you like crap. 

You're teaching them how to teach you, or how to treat you, that you are the butterfly. 

You're like, you can't treat me like I belong in the cocoon. I don't. 

You must treat me like the butterfly that I am. But you don't have to yell at them, you don't have to be mad at them, and you don't have to give them a big lecture about it. 

You're not even trying to explain this to them. 

You simply break free of the cocoon, fly, live your life, do what you love, and play with the ups and downs of the breeze and the variety in nature; that is how you teach other people how to treat you. 

You will not be burdened with the encapsulation of living inside a cocoon when you are fully developed. 

Your wings are fully developed. That's how you know. 

It's like I can't stand doing this ever any more. It's just that I'm not available for it. 

Whatever that thing is, you might turn in your notice at work because you're like, I am so done with this; it's time for me to fly. 

You might do that in a relationship that has been long overdue for an overhaul, and you might finally get some help. Or you might decide that the relationship no longer serves you and that you leave it. 

Whatever it is, you might get sick and tired of being fearful that you never have money in your bank account, and you actually get the training you need or the help you need, or you start applying for the jobs you want, and you get financial stability. 

But at some point, we all break free. 

To the extent to which that benefits us is up to you. 

You might get two legs out of the cocoon and decide to suck them back in because you think everybody else is going to judge by going  out on your own and figuring out your life. 

That's just ill thinking. That's not a healthy mindset. 

You have no limits on you. You are not limited. 

If you hear me say you are not limited, and you're like, oh, you say that, but I just don't know how that's okay. 

It's OK not to know how immediately. 

There's a process to understanding how I can help you get clarity if you want, but also trust your gut instinct. 

Just hang in there and figure out what you're thinking about. 

Your belief system has you thinking that you're stuck and powerless, which is what makes you the most angry, upset, and dissatisfied.

If it was true that you're stuck and you weren't one of those butterflies born to fly and be free, you're not one of those who would feel better if it was true. 

It doesn't feel good. It never feels good. 

It's like, well, you just feel crappy about that whole idea. But the idea of maybe I could be happy too, maybe I could get out there and fly, maybe I could know my own worth, maybe I could understand my value, maybe I could get my value, maybe I could help others see my value because I saw it in me first. 

Now, that is where your power is. 

You can break free from your cocoon as soon as the dissatisfaction gets high enough to be locked away in a cocoon where you can't use your wings. 

When it's time to spread your wings and expand, I guarantee your conflicts, your chaos, and your contrast are going to be high. 

Something has to push you to dig and scrap for that outside world so you can break free and fulfill the measure of your creation. It is your plan. 

You were born as a tiny little creature, and you were born to finish this out, see it through, gain your wings, and fly. 

Don't worry about the dormant people who decided to stay in their cocoon, assuming they could never fly. 

It's not your job to worry about those people. 

They can fly if they want to, but the chances of them flying are much greater when they see you do it first. 

You're the pattern breaker. 

You're the one that gets out there and shows them how it's done. 

Until you do, everybody plays small because they're just more likely to drag you into their misery than to show you how to get out of it. 

You're the one. You're the one you've been waiting for. It's time for you to fly. 

Let's get going, and let's get living.

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