STRONGER TOGETHER: From Chrysalis to Butterfly—Embracing the Magic of Becoming

"STRONGER TOGETHER" is a weekly column where Tanya explores key issues. This week Tanya discusses the transformative and sacred process of personal growth, likening it to a butterfly's chrysalis stage, where stillness and inward reflection lead to profound change and the emergence of one's true self.

By IMPACT Community Services Managing Director Tanya O'Shea

There’s a quiet stage between being who you were and who you're becoming. A tender, hidden moment. In the life of a butterfly, it’s called the chrysalis—where the caterpillar wraps itself in stillness and begins an unseen, radical transformation.

As humans, we too go through our own chrysalis phases. Maybe you’ve just graduated from university and are now moving from the structured environment of school to the uncertainties of the working world. Or perhaps you’ve recently ended a long-term relationship, lost your job, or are facing a serious illness. Or maybe, you are considering changing jobs, preparing to let go of those feelings of attachment and comfort as you start planning your transition.

These moments—when one chapter ends and another begins—can be life-changing. Yet they can also leave us feeling like retreating, stepping back, uncertain, not quite caterpillar anymore, not yet butterfly. But inside, things are shifting. Shedding what no longer fits. Making room for wings.

Tara Mohr, a leader in women's wellbeing and creator of the Playing Big program, invites us to see this space not as stuck, but as sacred. A normal, necessary pause. It’s where vision begins to take shape. It’s where we ask: Who am I becoming? How does my future look? These questions need time, shelter, and compassion.

You can’t rush a chrysalis. You can only support it—by being gentle with yourself, by listening in, by trusting that something beautiful is on its way. Even if it feels like nothing is happening, ‘future you’ is forming.

This is the work of becoming: honouring the stillness, even when the world tells you to keep going. It’s deeply human to resist change, to grieve the comfort of the old skin. But staying inside the cocoon is not about hiding—it’s about healing. About aligning your inner world before you re-enter the outer one.

Visualising that future self is part of the magic. Picture yourself—wings spread, colours vivid, rising into what’s next with grace. It’s already within you, just waiting for the right moment to emerge.

So, if you’re in the in-between, know this: you’re not lost. There may be some blank spaces in your ‘future you’ canvas but be confident that with time and inward reflection, more fragments will start to appear. The next layer will form, and your visions for what is next, will become clear. Your transition, your ‘chrysalis time’ will be complete.