There is a good chance that most of us have stumbled upon an old snake skin. It looks like the snake simply slithered out of the old skin, leaving it in one piece, a remnant of life before the new skin appeared. One of the reasons snakes shed their skin is to make room for further growth. The shedding of their skin is necessary because while their body continues to grow, their skin does not, and in order to accommodate the growth that has occurred, new skin is required.
Have you ever had the experience of slipping into your old skin? The one that served you once, but no longer does? While it might feel tight and a bit constrictive, there is a familiarity about it that, for the moment, feels comforting. We know that old skin. We remember that old skin. We even miss that old skin because becoming more of who we are meant to be means risking being in the world in new ways that are anything but familiar.
We humans do the same thing. We shed our skins too, just in smaller increments. A reminder that the skin held us together in the past is too small to contain us now.
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