When the Shell no Longer Fits
This isn’t advice. Just a reflection. Something I needed to write, and maybe someone else needs to read.
I never expected my muse to come out of the most challenging season of my life. In fact I never expected to suddenly feel the urge to type, to pen the trials and tribulations I am facing, and yet somehow I cannot keep it inside, quell the compulsion to speak aloud, to put it out there…
To open up and be vulnerable.
But here it is, the need to expose those insecurities, that weakness, those parts you keep protected for fear of pain or hurt.
No one wants to be vulnerable, it’s rarely a good feeling. It makes you anxious, fearful of what’s around the next corner. Vulnerability makes you feel weak. And when the world tells us to be strong, what do we do?
We avoid it. We hide it. We put on masks, sometimes for others, but often just to convince ourselves. But lately, I’ve been reflecting on that. Because the truth is, most of my real growth has come through vulnerability, not in spite of it.
🕷️ I felt like a spider shedding its skin. When it does, it outgrows its old shell. It becomes uncomfortable, it has no choice but to leave it behind. It steps out, but it’s soft, exposed, vulnerable. For a while, there’s no protection.
And yet, that’s how it grows. It can’t strengthen without first being fragile. That picture has stuck with me. Because that’s exactly how I’ve felt, still perhaps do in places. I’ve had to admit truths I didn’t want to face. Drop masks I didn’t even realise I was wearing. Stop pretending I was okay just to hold everything together.
And it hasn’t been easy. It’s cost me comfort. It cost my ‘normal’, a pattern of behaviour I convinced myself was fine. It works. It’ll do. It’s exposed things I’d rather have kept buried. And while there I was raw, tender, ready to cry at any moment. It felt like this vulnerable version of me was going to stay there forever, like the new skin wasn’t coming.
The temptation to retreat was strong.
But I couldn’t go back. The old shell no longer fits. Even if it did, I realised it wasn’t what I thought it was. ‘Normal’ felt like safety, but it wasn’t. It was stagnation. It was groundhog day. It was a trap, the same patterns, the same fears, the same half-life. You’re not protected. You’re stuck.
So you have to stay where you are, in this scary place, exposed, soft, waiting.
🌱 But if you can wait, if you can hold your nerve. Eventually, slowly, the new armour starts to form. A better, stronger ‘normal’ begins to emerge.
I definately didn’t notice it at first. I was still aching, still terribly tired. But bit by bit, I realised:
You’re not shrinking anymore, not hiding, not bracing for the next blow. You’re standing a little taller. Breathing a little deeper.
🔥 And then it hits you: You’ve grown, not in spite of the pain, but because you faced it. You stayed in the fire long enough to be forged, not consumed. And now, you’re stronger. Not the same. Not untouched. But transformed.
Shane
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
— 2 Corinthians 12:9