I see my working week as a butterfly

But this week, she's back in the chrysalis.

Last week, I had a wonderful coaching and breathwork session with Rebecca Caution and a strong vision appeared.

At the start of the breathwork, Rebecca had invited me to set an intention.

My intention is almost always, during these types of healing sessions: focus, clarity, and calm.

So I lay down on my office floor, under a fluffy blanket, my head resting on a pillow, and Rebecca guided me (via Zoom) to a conscious connected breath.

The playlist was brilliant, beginning to crescendo as my body filled with energy and power and a glorious tingling sensation.

And a butterfly appeared.

This butterfly represented my working week (see image above).

In the centre of the butterfly - the thorax - was a heart, and it represented ‘writing’.

Above and below the heart there was a glow and I felt like this was the space for coaching/consultancy work, or helping others with writing (client work).

This was my Wednesday.

The centre of working week.

Writing includes this weekly article I write, pitching to newspapers for commissions, planning my next book proposal and creative writing (a novel, poetry).

That’s a lot to fit into one day so I wondered if I might ask my husband to do both the drop-off and pick-up on Wednesdays so I could have a full day in flow each week.

Tuesday and Thursday felt important; they would keep the central body in place and help to start the flapping sensation that would enable the butterfly to fly.

I think they were the ‘day job’. Or at least work that guarantees income.

Maybe those would in fact be the days for client work?

I need to admit here that in my vision, the butterfly had just two wings - one on each side, with one part closer to the body and a thinner outer edge.

Actual butterflies have four wings - so this is not a science lesson. It’s very much on the spirit side of things.

Monday and Friday were the floaty, expressive, inspiring, creative outer wings. The days I need to fill with healing and nature and culture in order to stay in the air.

This all made the most perfect sense and I started to design my working week around it.

I was going away to Paris for the weekend and thought: when I return, this butterfly will come to life. My weeks will look exactly as I’ve described above.

Only, after a lovely weekend away, I returned home - delighted to see my children and husband and get back into my bed - and my eldest was sick.

So the first day of my ‘day job’ (on the Tuesday) had to be cancelled.

This started to throw my butterfly plan out the window.

But then I thought about the four life stages of a butterfly. And how they could be linked to being a working mother.

The egg is the pregnancy, where it all begins.

The caterpillar stage mimics the baby’s arrival and new life.

The chrysalis is the inner work as you consider how to move forward both as a mother and ‘worker’.

How to combine money work with motherhood.

And the butterfly is when you’re soaring; it’s all come together.

I decided, this week, that perhaps as a working mother, you have to return to the chrysalis for periods … when your children need you more than your work does.

And so this week, while I wanted to go full butterfly, I had to return inwards to full ‘mother’.

My daughter was at home yesterday and again today. Tomorrow is a strike day.

I’m squeezing in a Zoom with my agent, writing this newsletter and doing the odd social media post.

Plus a trip to the doctor to have a quick check-up, accompanied by my daughter.

I’ll be with two of my three children tomorrow.

And on Friday? I’ll do something for me, to keep me growing and flowing during a bank holiday weekend followed by another strike day.

I will look forward to going full butterfly the following week, which is - at the time of writing - completely blank.

Would you like to create your own visual representation of your week, using insects or animals as inspiration? If yes, here’s how to get into the mindset…