TO CHANGE IS TO PAIN FOR ALL THE COLORS OF THE WORLD CAN’T BE RELEASED WITHOUT THE RELEASE OF FEAR.

TRACY RICHARDS 1/15/2022

The “Butterfly” one of the most beautiful sights in nature. A majestic display of grace, color, individualism, and growth. The butterfly does not start its life this way. It must go through stages to become its end state. The butterfly goes through a process known as metamorphosis which in Greek means transformation or change in shape. Change is required.

The stages of a Butterfly are the Egg, the Larva (caterpillar), the Pupa (chrysalis), and the Adult. Each stage is necessary for the Butterfly to emerge. The change is essential for its end state. Much like the butterfly we too must go through stages in our life to become at our end state. The major issue we have as humans is accepting the fact that we need change to thrive. Ever heard someone say, “I hate change.” Change make us uncomfortable. It challenges us. It forces us to shift in our professional, personal, and spiritual spaces. Change is seen as a negative when in reality it is the most positive place we can find ourselves.

Most butterflies in their adult state only live 2 weeks on average, however, it takes roughly 28 to 32 days to become a butterfly. The butterfly spends more time becoming an adult than it does living out its adult life. Imagine if you only had two weeks to live once you became what you were meant to be. If we were able to live our lives as the butterfly does and accept the changes in us as magical events that help us to become who we were intended to be, then we would be able to appreciate the beauty in who we are inside and out. We take for granted that we will be here for 80-90 years when in fact only one knows how long we will live in our human state. Live for today as tomorrow is promised to no one is more than just a catchy phrase. I would add accept your change as it helps you to become your own beautiful butterfly.

Another amazing fact about the butterfly is that no two butterflies are exactly alike. Imagine that, of all the butterflies you have seen flying around your gardens and in your fields none of them are exactly alike. Their beauty is unique, one of a kind, unmatched. No two people are exactly alike either, not even twins. There is something that makes us different from our physical traits to our psychological or emotional state of minds. We too are all unique, one of a kind, and unmatched. There is beauty in our differences. The change that we undergo throughout our lives is what brings us to the beautiful butterfly state of life. Without change we are unable to be who we are today and without change we cannot become who we are meant to be tomorrow.

I am sure you have heard of the term “The Butterfly Effect”. This is the idea that small things matter and these small things are connected from those of the past to those of the present to those of the future. It is like the ripple in the pond that grows out from the center. You throw a rock and it makes a ring in the water that expands. With this mindset, there is nothing that is too small in life. Everything has meaning. Every change necessary. Every decision important. This is why change is so overwhelming. The IF THEN train of thought. We all run the different scenarios in our brains. Instead of making the change we believe we need, we find reasons to stay where we are at.

The greatest threat to becoming the Butterfly within each of us is FEAR. Fear is the great derailment of life, the blocker of change, and the suppresser of spiritual growth. Fear is the one emotion that can keep us stuck in the egg, larva, or pupa states of our lives. It is the excuse we use to keep us from the change we need. I would change careers but I am too old to start over. I would go back to school but I don’t have the money. I would learn to play an instrument but I can’t find the time. I should go to church but I have so much to do today. I could write or sing but I am not good enough. I would, I could, I should, and I don’t. What is holding us back from change is fear. Change can be a small thing or a large thing in our lives but what we should understand is that there really are no small or large changes. They are all equal, necessary, and important. There is a beautiful song “Always Changing”, by Fearless Soul that ties this together (link below).

I would invite each and every one of you to not just consider the change you have been holding back on but instead spread your beautiful butterfly wings and take flight into the wind and face the change head on. You know what you need to do. Do not fear the change, embrace it. Become your Butterfly State of Life.

Always Changing (Official Lyric Video) Fearless Soul

Best laid plans consume your thoughts. You always imagined you’d be married with two kids with a white picket fence surrounding your log cabin home on the lake in the woods with a mountain view. Big dreams to be a writer of poetry, books, and lyrics. You would be singing at a local bar in front of regulars who did not care if you missed a note because they felt your soul and appreciated your heartache. You look back at that little girl in black and white and you wonder how did she get here? Did she see the warning signs and ignore them; were there any? Did she step off the path to go the path less taken or did she follow the crowd and forget about her own destiny? Did she forget to believe in herself? Did she lose the inspiration by the voices that spoke the loudest after she lost the voice that mattered the most? What would that little girl think about the woman she has become? Would she be sad that she never reached for the stars that she dreamt about? Questions without answers; tears without resolution.

Road blocks are everywhere in life. There are detours that lead you in circles. You are comfortable and comfort leads to a stationary existence like a hamster on a wheel you can run all day and go absolutely no where. You look up and fall to your knees for the directional signal. The chaos is deafening. You cry in silence because you are strong, tough, and everyones shoulder. You are the cheerleader who picks up the crowd with a smile while little by little you become invisible, insignificant, and hollow inside. Ssshhh you are good, you are blessed, you are lucky, others have it worse, stop your pity, it’s not pretty to cry, no one loves weakness, keep going, you are fine, smile, stand up tall, help is not coming, accept it……accept it……accept it!!!! She needs you, he needs you, they need you so get up off of your knees and get over yourself.

Fear has tied your wings and made it impossible to fly. The daily grind is suffocating your creativity and suppressing your joy in the things you love. Controlled by the green you miss out on your dreams as you watch your life pass you by. You have already learned that life is short but you refuse to take the leap. You cannot fail; too many people depend on you. You convince yourself that you do what you do for everyone else. Truth is you are too scared to jump and not make it. Failure has never been an option. Just keep on going. You are doing great. You lie to yourself to keep going on a road with no stop lights. This works for you because you are a runner. You run from difficult situations, relationships, your own emotions, feelings, and pain. You are addicted to being numb.

Who is that girl in the mirror that looks back at you? I knew you as a fighter so where is the fight? She looks back at you and simply says “I’m tired.”

The definition of FEAR is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat. The definition of CONTROL is the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events. To control by fear is to use the unpleasant emotion that you will be harmed by influencing your behavior towards an event.

People have been controlled by fear since the beginning of time. I do believe that there are healthy forms of fear. The fear that is instilled in us as children for our protection against things that could harm us such as running out into the street or touching a hot stove. There is also the healthy fear for disciplinary purposes, the this for that scenario of if you misbehave then you will be grounded or spanked. The healthy fear of authority which is designed out of respect for our police and our educators. We understand that these people are here to help us but also understand that there are consequences for inappropriate actions. Finally there is a healthy fear of our father in biblical terms. Christians for example believe that we must follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Bible to have everlasting life in heaven. If we are an immoral non-believer then we will not be saved.

Fear is a learned behavior and it is essential in life. However, if the power of fear is placed in the wrong hands then it can perpetrate its people to submit, unknowingly, the control of their own lives. Our forefathers wanted to protect the rights of its people and did so through our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and Civil Liberties. They understood how government control oppressed its people and fought to free themselves from tyranny and to deliver a future of freedom for all of us. They knew how much man loved power and control and sought to make sure that man could not destroy America due to his/her own greed.

Here we are in the year 2020 during a pandemic and our government is using FEAR of a virus to take away the rights of the American people. I use the term government loosely because they are not governing anyone….they are controlling every aspect of life from where you can go, who can work, what you have to wear, when you can open, why you have to vaccinate, and how long restrictions will last. Daily we hear different stories from the same people. They talk out two sides of their face constantly contradicting themselves. They are in fact magicians. Politicians use fear so that you will focus on their right hand while they steal your freedoms with their left hand. It is MAGIC and the people applaud their efforts to keep them safe while approving the removal of their rights in the name of SAVING a LIFE.

Wearing a mask is an example of freedoms being removed. I find this absolutely ridiculous. People are literally making their own unapproved masks to cover their faces with fabric that is breathable and can be penetrated by droplets. Doctors have already come out against this practice as they state this is unnecessary for healthy people. They have proven that unless you have an N95 mask or a properly filtered mask you are NOT protected. So what is the purpose of the mask? It is a government control tactic based on falsely proposed fear that you will get deathly ill if you don’t wear one. If that does not work then they claim you are selfish as those of you not wearing a mask are going to carry the virus to those most vulnerable and subsequently will be responsible for the death of these people. Really? This empowers the righteous followers of this face mask practice to shun and yell at people who do not wear one in public. They come out on social media and degrade your freedom to NOT wear one. Do you see the sleight of hand?

Declaring that businesses must close to control the spread of this virus is another way that the government has used fear to control its people. The livelihoods of millions and millions of Americans are being purposely destroyed at the hands of our so called leaders. They not only forced businesses large and small to shut down but they also decided which businesses were essential and which ones were not. The question rang out loud, why Walmart and not Joe’s Corner Store? If Joe’s Corner Store sells essentials like Walmart then why is he closed? The false fear will close down the small business and remove your choice to shop there which will force you to only shop at the large conglomerate chain. See a pattern?

Next the government has used your fear to remove your right to assemble and your right to religious freedom. The need to social distance means that you cannot legally come out and protest (peacefully) against a government that has systematically removed your rights one by one. They are condemning your rights to protest their tyrannical overreaching orders. These orders are unfounded in their attempts to suppress the virus. Control is the goal. People are being arrested and cited for congregating at their church in their cars with their windows up while they receive the word of God from their ministers, pastors, priests, and Rabbi’s etc. You can go to a grocery store packed wall to wall but you cannot go before your state governments and protest or go to your Church to pray? Is this becoming more clear for you yet?

The freedom of speech is being removed during this pandemic due to the fear of the virus by promoting propaganda through the media on TV, radio, and social media. They are deciding what is true and what is false using fact checkers, they are spewing unfounded rhetoric to down play the effectiveness of medicine, falsely enhancing the necessity to wear masks, wrongly gagging the challenge of qualified doctors who are treating this virus, and unconscionably suppressing the truth about the Chinese government and the World Health Organization all while taking your voice away to counter any and all of these stances. This is in fact one of the rights we should all hold the most dear. Your ability to question and have your own view and be free to speak it and share it should never be controlled. Can you see the cost of censorship?

One of the most egregious decisions that our governments are currently making is to release criminals from prison. The fear of the virus has state governments (some) letting criminals out of jail and shortening their prison sentences so that they will not catch a virus. Are you kidding me? What about the rights of the victims? The Judicial systems are already stating that they are picking up these same criminals for new offenses. Which means your careless ignorant decision has now created new victims. Where are the rights of the people to be protected by our governments? My favorite piece of this part is that they are letting criminals out while putting offenders who open their government decided non-essential businesses back up without authorization in prison. What? Can you smell the dangerous hypocrisy?

The scariest upcoming fear mongering tool will be the governments attempt to force a vaccination to be taken by all of its citizens to work, buy, sell, and live in the United States of America. Yes in America they are seeking right now a way to mark you as COVID 19 free. There has been talk of a certificate of vaccination completion. Many of you will run to the doctors to get this vaccination as you constantly and blindly trust the practice of medicine and the power of the pharmaceutical companies and the government to enforce them. They have introduced the need for tracing. How do you think they do that exactly? Are you willing to be chipped, labeled, tattooed, and certified over a virus? This is precisely what our forefathers feared. Are you awake yet?

While many of you sit at home in a fetal position over a virus which has a high survival rate (will go up even higher as more of us are tested) the rest of us are out here fighting to ensure that none of us lose our Constitutional Rights. The United States government is a government of the people. The governing officials are put into power by the people. They are supposed to legislate for the people. I do not see that our government’s current actions support Abraham Lincolns most famous phrase to honor the soldiers that sacrificed their lives in order “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” They say to fight the good fight. Well there is no greater fight worth fighting than that to protect our Civil Liberties guaranteed to us by the Constitution. I will not be silenced. I will stand up and speak out against all those who seek to destroy the foundation of this country that our forefathers designed and sacrificed for, that our soldiers have fought and died for, and the country that I love and call home the beautiful United States of America. Don’t Tread On Me!

We have all heard the phrase, there is no love like a mother’s love. Those of us who have had the opportunity to be raised by phenomenal moms understand why this resonates with us. If you yourself are a mother this phrase will hopefully exemplify your own love towards your children. This does not mean that a mother alone feels these emotions as there are fathers out there that act as the mother and the father to their children. You also do not have to birth a child to feel these emotions (step moms, foster moms, adoption moms). All mothers are not created equal either. Some mothers never bond with their children as we see too often in our daily news cycle. Taking all of this into consideration, I am going to focus on Maternal Love today.

Valentine’s Day was just a day ago and I was thinking about the different types of love that happen throughout a woman’s life. There are many people that she will love. Her husband/partner, her mother/father, her siblings, her extended family, and friends but there will be no love like that she holds for her children. A mother’s love will erase all needs she has for herself immediately. She will go without to ensure that her children have what they need. This selflessness is not a conscience choice to a mother. It just becomes an innate response to the birth of her child. It is an immediate unspoken lifestyle change. No one has to tell her how to act and where to lay her priorities. No. She already knows with her maternal instinct. I do understand that some lack this ability for whatever reason and that there are truly “bad” moms but most are amazing. There have been scientific studies that have been done on this topic. As a mother myself, I do not need to read a scientist’s findings to understand how my bond with my daughter unfolded. It was instantaneous and strong.

I remember finding out I was pregnant and the instant joy and fear that came over me. The joy of finding out I would be a mom in 9 plus months and the fear of will I be a good one. The good news for me was that I myself had a wonderful example of what a mother’s love looks like. My mom made me want to be a mom. Her unconditional love 💗 was the cornerstone of my rearing. I know I am loved and no matter how old I get I know she is there for me through any storm. As my daughter formed in the womb the bond began. Feeling life grow is the greatest experience I have ever had. I was able to love her before I ever met her. The 9 plus months is God’s way of preparing you to become a mom. Get your ducks in a row before your baby is born. Once she was born and the doctor laid her on my chest I was in awe of her. She was in fact and will always be the best thing I have ever done in my life. It was at that very moment with her being so dependent on me and vulnerable to the world that I understood that she was the most precious gift I would ever get from God and I knew that as long as God would allow me to be her earthly mother, I had to vow to take care of her at all cost forever. Forever!!!!

Truth, I did not know how to be a mom on my own. I learned how to be a mom from my relationship with my own mother. She taught me what a mother’s love should be. She sacrificed and struggled to ensure that my brother and I had all we ever needed. She is the heart and soul of our family. The center. During the rearing of my daughter there were many sleepless nights that I leaned on my mom for guidance. I was able to do this because of the strength of my trust in my mother’s ways of parenting. What a blessing it is to have a mother that you can lean on at every turn life gives to you. Mothers provide the nurturing, understanding, support, and protection. I myself was a little softer with punishments. I understood the need for them but that protective nature kicked in. There is always the inner battle of I know this is what is best for her but at the same time I hated to see her hurt. What an intersection in life that is for mothers.

A Mother’s Love is a love like no other. It can single handedly alter the course of a child’s life. The benefits of being raised by a loving mother are unmatched. Mothers are loved by their children no matter how they are treated. Why? Because no matter what happens in life this child wants the love and acceptance from his/her mom. That is extremely powerful. This means that the child is born with this love for his/her mother. I am thankful for the love of my mother. I am thankful to be able to love my daughter unconditionally as I am loved. I am hopeful that one day my daughter will be able to expand on the love from her grandmother and mother and extend the love she has learned to her child. The circle of life is a beautiful thing. The blessings we are given are so precious. If you are loved by an incredible mother who would move mountains for you. If you are loved by a mother who has sacrificed it all for your benefit. Whether your mother is living or loves you from the other side, let us know what amazing things your mother has done for you. Let us know what things your mother has taught you that made you the mother you are. Make sure to celebrate your mom daily for there is truly no love like A Mother’s Love.

My Mother My Heart

My mother my heart
There right from the start
A promise to never part
My mother my heart.

My mother my friend
Her love never ends
For all heartaches she mends
My mother my friend.

My mother my love
Sent from the Lord above 
Forever with me like a dove
My mother my love.

My mother my mirror
Our closeness couldn't be clearer
Our hearts grow daily nearer
My mother my mirror.

My mother my guide
Always lifted me with pride
Walking together side by side
My mother my guide.

My mother my mentor
A women who always gives more
Teaching us to be strong at our core
My mother my mentor.

My mother my grace
Impossible to replace
Life lessons never erased
My mother my grace.

My mother my soul
Her love for me continues to grow
The memories made will never be old
My mother my soul.

My mother my heart
There right from the start
A promise to never part
My mother my heart.

by:  Tracy Richards