#BlogTour – #Extract from #Metamorphosis by @saramadderson @RandomTTours #RandomThingsTours

As part of the blog tour for Metamorphosis by Sara Madderson I’m thrilled to be able to share an extract from this fascinating book with you today. Thank you to Anne Cater and the publisher for the invitation.

About the book:

Do you ever feel as though you’re sleepwalking through life? Awake, but not fully conscious? Surviving, but not thriving?
So many of us have built ourselves cocoons that, while comfortable, limit us from living fully. Cocoons can be either a form of confinement or, as nature shows us, an incubator for transformation.

In Metamorphosis, Sara Madderson lays out a two-part framework for making changes in our lives that will bring us greater joy, consciousness and wonder, and that will elevate both our human relationships and our perceptions of the world around us.

Part I focuses on the metamorphosis process itself, providing six steps to shrug off our cocoon and awaken to our own limitlessness.

Part II is devoted to navigating our external world, and helping us to understand exactly what we want in life. When we invest in our own transformation, and we transform our perceptions of the world around us, then we can emerge from our cocoon and truly embrace our own magnificence.

In this book, you will learn:

Why we build cocoons for ourselves, and how to use our cocoons as incubators for growth and transformation.

By the end of this book you will be transformed, viewing life from the liberated perspective of the butterfly while knowing that your cocoon is there for you whenever you need to recharge and regenerate on your lifelong journey.

About the author:

Sara Madderson is an author, entrepreneur, wife and mother. She was born in Ireland and moved to the UK with her family when she was ten years old. She lives in London with her husband Chris, their two children, Paddy and Tilly, and their cocker spaniel Charlie.

Before turning to writing, Sara worked in finance for a decade and then ran her own fashion brand, MaddersonLondon, for eight years. She earned her MPhil in Early Modern History from the University of Birmingham.

Metamorphosis is Sara’s first book. Given that she spent most of her childhood writing and designing clothes, she’s now seen both of her childhood career dreams come true! She’s enjoyed the adventure of publishing independently as much as she’s enjoyed the writing process itself. She’s now completely hooked on writing!

Twitter @saramadderson

Extract:

Metamorphosis

by Sara Madderson 

Taking 100% Responsibility

Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.

Buddha

This step is pretty straightforward. It simply requires us to take 100% responsibility for everything that has happened and will happen in our lives. However, simple in theory doesn’t always mean easy in practice. So what does this mean in practice?

First, taking responsibility does not mean:

• guilt, self-blame, recrimination, self-loathing, or shame

• being responsible for what has been done to you by others Taking responsibility does mean understanding that we can choose:

• all of our thoughts, emotions and behaviour

• how we react to everything that happens in our lives

• how we react to everything that others do to us

• how we can improve things going forward

It categorically does not mean shrugging off a wrongdoing or crime for example, or failing to stand up for ourselves, but it does mean owning the fact that this event is now part of our story and it means understanding that we have the authority to determine the direction that our story takes from here.

SHIRKING OUR RESPONSIBLITIES STARTS YOUNG

I believe we’re taught to abdicate responsibility from a very early age, and this is something that I unknowingly fostered in my children when they were very little. Once I woke up to the implications of what I was doing, I changed my behaviour and my language immediately. Many of us will, when faced with a toddler who’s run straight into a chair or table leg and is howling in pain and shock, attempt to comfort them by admonishing the chair: ‘Naughty chair!!! Poor Tilly. Let’s smack the chair.’ And we duly smack the chair. Hands up, I’ve done this in the past. Once I started to read more on the perils of encouraging victimhood and to see more examples of fullygrown men and women failing to take responsibility, I quickly changed my tune.

I can’t tell you how often I see adults lash out rather than take responsibility. I mean, it happens every single day. Once you become aware of this dynamic, you’ll constantly notice adults behaving like infants who want Mummy to smack the chair. Dave trips over a child’s toy on the floor and yells ‘Who left that bloody thing in the middle of the floor? Tidy up your toys!’

I suspect, if we’re honest, that our gut reaction may often be to respond like Dave. After all, when we trip over a toy we get a shock, we get embarrassed, we feel stupid, we feel vulnerable, and those emotions quickly turn to anger. Attack is the best form of defence, right? We feel threatened, our sympathetic nervous system kicks in, and we lash out, so we’re often battling against both nature and nurture. I think there’s true nobility in overcoming that gut reaction and choosing to take responsibility.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY IN TINY WAYS CAN TRANSFORM OUR HUMAN CONNECTIONS

There are so many instances when we blame or shame others instead of holding ourselves accountable. Let me give you an example, also involving seat availability bizarrely enough, which shows just how deeply engrained in our culture the knee-jerk reaction of shifting responsibility is. Last Saturday night, my husband Chris and I took the kids to the cinema to watch a family movie. Ten minutes into the movie, two women came in with a gaggle of children. They went towards their allocated seats and found that another woman and her child were already sitting there. The latecomers loudly proceeded to tell the other woman that she needed to move. She seemed slow to either understand or accept this and a loud back-and-forth ensued. Meanwhile, a third woman started to speak up, accusing the latecomers of disruption. One of the latecomers then started arguing back. Eventually the seats were vacated and the latecomers settled down to watch the movie.

As I watched this unfold, I could feel a very clear conflict in me. My higher self was trying valiantly to ignore the commotion, to give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt, and to think well of them (after all, their egos were likely experiencing the same feeling of threat as mine had on the Eurostar). My ego, however, wanted to give all of them a good slap. For God’s sake, I thought, does everyone on this planet feel the need to go about every part of their life being entitled, morally outraged, and quick to be offended by absolutely everyone and everything? As I discussed the experience with Chris on my way home, he commented that interactions like this do make it difficult to be hopeful for the state of humanity.

But what if everyone in the cinema that evening had behaved like adults and taken 100% responsibility for their role? The latecomers would have quietly taken the first seats they saw to minimise disruption or they might have apologised profusely for disturbing the woman and her child already seated there. In turn, ideally she would have understood that her gamble of taking someone else’s seats had not paid off and quickly vacated them. Most likely, both parties would then have avoided the sensation of righteous outrage that I’m sure they both endured for another quarter of an hour. And finally, the third woman would have had no reason to butt into the altercation or to believe that she had any justification to take offence.

In short, if everyone had had the self-awareness to consciously note and over-ride their base instincts, to take responsibility for their circumstances and react appropriately, one little cinema screening room would have enjoyed a higher vibration that evening. Elevating the human race lies in a million, tiny, individual choices for which we must all take responsibility. When we treat other people the way we wish to be treated, and in doing so acknowledge that we are all infinitely connected, then we strengthen our bonds and we experience more love and light.

End of extract

Metamorphosis by Sara Madderson is available to purchase now: Amazon UK

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