The Cocoon Phase is a vulnerable and confusing space.
There’s a moment in our lives when everything familiar begins to fall away. Old patterns lose their grip. Roles that once defined us feel distant. We’re no longer who we were, yet we’re not quite who we’re becoming either. There is the death of the known, without the comfort of the new.
Having moved through my own cycles of rebirth and guided clients through theirs, I began to notice a distinct pattern. The evolution of a butterfly is the perfect mirror for the process.
Inside the Cocoon
When a caterpillar is ready for transformation, it builds itself a cocoon. Inside, the caterpillar doesn’t simply grow wings; it completely dissolves its identity and enters metamorphosis.
If you were to cut open a cocoon, you wouldn’t find a caterpillar or a butterfly – but a gooey liquid that doesn’t resemble either. By interrupting the transformation process, it remains stuck between two states.
In the same way, this stage of human transformation can feel like disorientation, emptiness, or floating in the unknown. There’s discomfort, grief and vulnerability. No one truly chooses to be in this space.
But it’s not failure.
It’s not depression.
And it’s not something to fix.
The Fertile Void
Gestalt psychotherapy calls this space the fertile void; a quiet space of becoming. It’s a place where we can neither go back nor move forward, so we must stay fully present to the unfolding process.
It’s fertile because it’s both the space of nothing and the possibility of everything. A space of emptiness, but not lifelessness. The old is falling apart, but the new hasn’t yet arrived.
We are not taught to value this. Society often pressurises us to know what’s next. “I don’t know yet” is seen as weakness, a lack of strength. This creates pressure to form a decision or choose a direction.
And yet, in the stillness, the true transformation happens.
What the Body Feels
Our body finds the Cocoon Phase confusing – especially when we don’t realise what’s happening.
We may experience fatigue, brain fog, low energy, or lack of motivation. Not because anything is wrong, but because we are in a deep nervous system reconfiguration. Old structures are collapsing. New ones are slowly building.
In this phase, phrases I often hear clients say include:
“I don’t know who I am anymore”
“I feel like nothing is working”
“I’m not depressed, but everything feels flat”
“What I wanted doesn’t feel right, but I don’t know what I want now”
“I can’t make plans for the future”
Honouring the Process
This phase is deeply uncomfortable because we become trapped in the present. We can’t go back or move forward. It feels like a form of purgatory – an empty space between realities.
There’s a strong desire to move through the process too quickly, to grab at clarity or the next step. But the real work is to stay with the uncomfortable unknown. Just like the butterfly, you cannot force transformation.
Instead, we must learn to be gentle, patient, and honour the process.
The cocoon is not a waiting room.
It is the transformation.
Why To Stay With It
I’ve seen with my clients that this is often the moment they want to abandon the process. There’s an urge to go back to the old self or grasp onto something familiar.
But the risk is that if you force an evolution before it’s ready, the transformation hasn’t fully integrated. And this means at a later point, you may be pulled back into this phase—sometimes even more disoriented than before.
Comfortable With Discomfort
My work is to recognise these subtle shifts in clients. Not to fix. Not to push forward. But to stay with them in the void. To be fully present in navigating both the calm and the chaos of transformation.
As the old patterns gradually dissolve, there’s joy witnessing glimmering butterflies emerge – ready to explore new heights.
