On Catching Birds and Flying Free
"Come to the cliff", he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the cliff", he said.
They came. He pushed them.
And they flew.
-Guillaume Appolinaire
We all know that a mother bird pushes its babies out of the nest when it senses
they are ready to learn how to fly. But imagine for a moment not knowing that
and seeing the young bird falling out of the nest, assumedly towards its
imminent death. With the best of all possible intentions, we would
instinctively reach out and catch it before it hit the ground.
From our point of view, we might assume
that we saved that bird from pain or even death, and reflect on the
synchronicity of our being in the right place at the right time and the
apparent cruelty of nature.
The young bird would feel mightily
relieved at being caught, and would certainly be extremely grateful to us.
Depending on whether it had an optimistic or pessimistic bent, it would either
decide the universe is a friendly place where people are always there to catch
us when we fall, or a dangerous place where you never know when the next person
you love and trust is going to push you out of the nest. It might
understandably misinterpret its mother's loving nudge as a cruel rejection, and
wind up in bird therapy. (Talk about having issues with your parents! :-)
Of course, the mother bird might see
things differently. She knows that even baby birds have wings and after a
certain age, they can fly. The way they learn is by 'falling' until instinct
takes over. But by catching the young bird too early in its fall, we
interrupted the lesson at a critical juncture. Instead of flying clumsily
around the nest until mastering its wings and realizing it can ride the wind
across the sky, the little bird we so kindly caught will remain flightless,
dependant, and frightened, completely unaware of the incredible power within it
to spread its wings and soar high above the clouds.
So what conclusions can we draw from
this little thought experiment?
What we can learn is that perhaps we
too have wings which have rarely if ever been tested, kept tucked firmly at our
sides by our well-meaning support networks of family and friends. Perhaps we
cling too tightly to our own nests, 'protecting' ourselves with a cocoon of
fear, thinking that to venture outside that comfortable nest will bring
disaster and death, when in fact it is the only way we can truly connect with
the inner power which is our birthright.
A friend told me the story of how she
first found her own wings after losing a breast to cancer. She was attending a
personal empowerment program, listening to the proceedings half-heartedly,
feeling both helpless and hopeless about her future. The course leader, after
repeatedly asking for her full attention, sent her out of the room until she
was 'ready to participate fully'.
When she first left the room, she was
filled with anger. How dare he treat her like that? Didn't he know she was
recovering from CANCER?!
After a time, her anger turned to
sadness, then despair. How would she ever be able to get by in the world after
the loss she had suffered? What if everyone treated her as coldly and cruelly
as the course leader?
Finally, she told me, she began to
laugh. The absurdity of her situation had just struck her. Here she was, alive
and relatively well after the doctors had told her she could easily have died,
and she was wasting her precious, precious time feeling sorry for herself and
getting angry at the man she was paying to help her find what she had never
lost.
She realized then that treating her as
a responsible adult had been the most loving thing that course leader could
possibly have done. She knew in that moment that she would always be able to
make choices about how to show up and participate even under the most difficult
of circumstances. Her personal empowerment training was complete.
Today's Experiment:
1. Take at least three actions this
week, which force you outside of your 'nest'. Notice what you learn when you
step beyond your own cocoon of fear - how do you feel? What's different? What
remains the same? (Obviously, common sense prevails here - if you are in a
situation of imminent physical danger, do what you need to do to stay safe!)
2. Choose a person in your life that
you deeply love and would love to see tap into the power within them. This
week, decide to be with them as they are without trying to change, fix, or help
them in any way, knowing in your heart that they too have the ability in any
moment to spread their wings and go from falling to flying.
.
Have fun, learn heaps, and fly free!