The Sacred Pause: Honoring the Nymph Stage of Transformation

In her powerful book When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd reminds us of the sacredness of waiting, of cocooning, of surrendering to the unseen work of becoming. This message resonates deeply for so many women I meet—women who are wise, capable, and full of yearning—yet who carry the quiet ache that they are somehow behind. Behind in healing, behind in clarity, behind in living their fullest, truest lives.

But what if we’ve misunderstood the pause?

What if what feels like stagnation is actually sacred incubation?

As a damselfly teaches us, transformation doesn’t happen in one glorious moment of flight. Before she unfurls her iridescent wings and dances above the water’s edge, she lives for months—sometimes even years—as a nymph. Submerged. Unseen. Dwelling in the murky shallows.

This stage is not glamorous. It’s not praised in our culture of performance and progress. But it is essential.

The nymph is growing. She is learning to navigate her environment, learning to breathe, to find stability. Her outer appearance may not hint at the beauty to come, but the blueprint of the damselfly is already within her. She doesn’t rush it. She can’t. If she were to emerge too early, before her wings were ready, she would never fly.

How many of us have tried to emerge before we were ready?

We pushed forward because we were tired of hurting. We tried to bypass grief, skip over anger, cover shame with smiles. We wanted to be healed, already. To be flying, already. But rushing the process doesn’t bring us closer to ourselves—it fragments us further. And we wonder why we feel exhausted, disconnected, and lost.

The nymph stage is not failure.

It is not delay.

It is preparation.

This is the message I want to offer every woman who feels she’s running out of time. You are not behind. You are becoming. And everything you’re doing now—resting, questioning, tending to your wounds, letting go of old identities—is sacred work. It’s the work of the nymph. The work that must be done so that your wings, when they finally open, are strong enough to hold your dreams.

There is no shame in the pause.

There is only the quiet whisper of life saying, “Wait. There is more of you still to uncover.”

So stay submerged a little longer if you must. Honor the stage you're in. Trust that your timing is not off. It’s perfect. The day will come when you rise from the depths, pause at the edge, and feel the pull of the sky. And on that day, you will not fly with urgency—you will fly with grace, with wisdom, and with the strength of a woman who knows her wings.

Joanne