Don't Let the Birds Build a Nest
Your thoughts aren't the boss of you
“You can’t stop the birds from flying around your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair.” -Martin Luther
I moonlight as a Hospice Chaplain in addition to my University work. What that means is I get a front-row seat on the daily to the rawest, most human and more ‘real than real’ moments in life. And one thing I see over and over is how our own thoughts can become the cruelest voices in the room. Grief is an absolute thief and distorts and distracts from the truth that life and reality is chock full and overflowing with love and hope.
Our own thoughts accuse us. They whisper guilt into our ears. They replay old regrets on a loop. They blow up our worries into catastrophes so big they block out the sun. And before we know it, we’ve lost sight of the love, connection, and meaning that are right here—in the moment we’re actually living.
But here’s the truth: we are not our thoughts.
I came across this Martin Luther quote this morning and he said it well: "You can't stop the birds from flying around your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair." Once a thought enters our head, we have freewill to tell it what to do. Your entire mental, emotional and physical health are relying on you to do something about it. Your body keeps the score.
The birds will come. The guilty thoughts will flap by. The what-ifs will swoop in. But you don’t have to let them settle in, build a nest, and set up a full HOA meeting in your mind. This is your home, defend it.
Stop catastrophizing every event, every worry, every thought about the future. You don’t know what the future holds, you only have today, now, the moment you are in. How do you want to enter it and experience it? When we pull ourselves into the now—this breath, this cup of coffee, this conversation, this what I’m writing right now and releasing to the magical internet. In the Now, we find something the accusing thoughts can’t touch: real peace and contentment. There is meaning in the moment you are actually in, not the one your mind is trying to drag you into with unending and bullying anxiety. You are capable of living in peace.
If you are experiencing grief, anything that feels like guilt is a lie. The truth is love, that’s why you are in this moment full of care and concern for your loved one. Grief can be cruel, but it can also be beautiful, it’s a refining process.
When we are confronted with death in this life, what is dying is not just your loved one; but all the faulty assumptions you were born into that this life is about collecting paychecks, being good consumers, being culture war winners and proving yourself to others so that you are ‘worth’ something. The truth is you were born to matter. The truth is before you were born into a human family, you already had belonging in the mind and heart of your Creator. (Read Psalm 139) In this mystical reality, all of life’s moments can be experienced with an abiding peace that grows into a lifestyle of raging hope.
The next time those thoughts start circling, don’t reach for the birdseed, don’t feed them. Let them fly by, you have a life to live, its in the moment you are in right now.
Welcome to the Good Life, my friends!