Cocooning – what’s so freighting about new life?

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Cocooning – what’s so freighting about new life?

I was at a National Speakers Association meeting and someone told me she was invited to speak at the Woman’s Prison and didn’t think she could.  She asked me if I could. Sure, why not? So she connected me to go into a prison.

Before I went in, I was even asked if I wanted a tour. Not necessary I thought. Who is there? People I presume.  People who have made a mistake and been caught. People who needed to change?

And so I spoke at the Women’s Prison. One of the things I talk about is not only accepting but celebrating “What is.” I know the physical benefits in “praise and thanksgiving in all things,” and yet at times I find it hard. I wondered what I could say to women in prison. What could be good about that?

Meister Eckhard said, “Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.” Maybe that’s it - the benefit could it be - that this time of enforced stopping of unending activities, would allow them a time to be still? A time to connect with their God? I thought that the stopping might be the gift – and it could be a benefit for them to see it that way.

You always have the choice - to see things as awful, want to have things as they are not, but holding onto “what is not” only causes us pain. Yet I do it and have to catch myself and use my will to surrender to what I cannot change. And after the yielding, my task is to look for the gift. So I thought my task could be to attempt to do this for the women which I’ve noticed is sometimes easier than in doing it for myself.

Here’s what I thought: taken out of the normal stream of life and being bound up in jail could be looked at as a process of cocooning. It could be used as a time to look inward and to focus on transformation. Obviously, there was something not working in your life, or you wouldn’t be there. If this time could be fruitful in discovering what that something was and getting new tools to use to make permanent changes, then all the better.

What kinds of tools could one get while in prison? In the correctional center's newsletter, I noticed several opportunities for spiritual groups. There’s the answer!

Distress is a disconnection from the Divine. Scott Peck says there was a reason alcohol is referred to as “spirits.” Mother Teresa said she never saw a country with such poverty as America - spiritual poverty. The success of the spiritually based 12 step programs is confirmation of the need for God. Try as you may, you don’t succeed alone.

I can’t know what it’s like for women in prison, but I did see their faces and hear their words that told me that the thought of cocooning was helpful. Bodies may be confined, but changing your thoughts and deepening your faith are activities that no one can stop you from doing. no matter where you are. Changing your thoughts and deepening your faith are things you can continue to do when you get out. Changing your thoughts and deepening your faith are going to transform your life.

I challenged the women to use this time wisely, to endeavor to change themselves in this time apart. I promised them that if they did, they would emerge as new people and I had butterfly stickers for them as a reminder. (I almost forgot to give them the stickers but before the women left the room they asked me for them.) My wish is that the women held that idea before them and that it gave them hope. My desire was that they would see a vision of the beautiful person that is within them being released, that a new life would be manifested for them.

This can be important for anyone. Some of us are in unseen prisons of our own making. The threads we weave that bind us may be stronger than the bars and fences that surround the correctional centers. Do you want to be released? Are you willing to change your thoughts and deepen your faith? Are you ready to enter the stillness, to await transformation? Can you conceive of the exquisite beauty within you emerging and flying up as on wings like a butterfly?

As Christians we are Easter people. We know that the Resurrection followed what had looked like death. There will be times in our lives that may be difficult for us, they will pass, and they will gift us with becoming more if we will let them. Becoming more compassionate, more understanding, more grateful, more wise, more patient, more joyful, more kind, more connected and more loving - receiving spiritual gifts.

Isn’t that the purpose of this life - our spiritual success? And if so, then some of our most unpleasant experiences may have been some of our most fruitful encounters.

Ouch, I’m becoming more!

Lead me forth from prison that I may give thanks to your name. Psalm 142:8

For a free Lenten Booklet go to www.TheWayoftheCrossanadResurrection.com  

Lynn Durham, RN author of From Frazzled to Fantastic! You’re One Thought Away from Feeling Better. 603-926-9700 or smile@lynndurham.com