The trapped bird

A story about power, using your voice and life as a woman raised in the 80's and 90's

There was a bird in the greenhouse yesterday. As it flapped around frantically, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between myself and it. Trapped in a box, able to see my way out but unable to access it.

Panicking and flying into the glass every so often as a desperate attempt to free myself, only to be thrown back again and again by my own thoughts, the judgements of others, my conditioning.

Once I opened the door for it, it pretty much flew straight out with some gentle guidance from me.

My thoughts turned to ways that I could do the same for myself.

The first step is to open the door, which I think i’ve started doing, peeling back the layers of conditioning, not enoughness, anxiety and overwhelm. Seeing it for what it is and re-writing those stories for myself. Taking time to re-build my self worth and my self-confidence through gardening.

My big one to work on right now is self trust. For so many years I didn’t trust myself because I’d spent my life ignoring the sensations in my body, speaking up only to be told by society I was wrong and taking what they said to be gospel. Even though I knew in my heart of hearts I was right, or at least entitled to my opposing opinion. There’s only so many times you can be told you’re wrong or you don’t know enough to have an opinion before you start to believe it deep down in your soul.

So I outsourced my power to anyone who would take it- bosses at work, my husband, my parents and thinking they were doing me a favour they took it and ‘helped’ me make decisions.

If only they’d had some faith in me, or at least allowed me to cultivate my own self trust by asking me what I thought and listening with an open mind before foisting their views on me or worse trying to disprove me and keep me in my box.

There have been pivotal moments throughout my life where my power has resurfaced temporarily.

• When I was told at school to apply to study medicine my first thought was ‘No thank you’ and I actually listened.

• When I had my first daughter my inner lioness came alive and helped me to realise that I didn’t need to check everything with my parents any more. I had an innate knowing and trusted myself to make the right choices for me and my girls.

• And I find myself at one right now.

Growing my garden over the last 10 years has supported me to recover from burn out, process grief, new and old and feel held in the loneliness and confusion of new motherhood and a late ADHD diagnosis.

But in the last few weeks I feel it has taken a turn into something altogether more impactful and exciting.

It’s helping me to use my voice publicly. Like all those years growing my plants, sowing seeds, pruning and watering has enabled Mother Nature to infuse some of her power in me. To enable me to be a conduit for all the things she wants to say about the role of women in the world in 2024.

She’s seen it all you see, women working the land with babies strapped to their backs, to women working in a soulless office with babes in childcare or being childfree by choice.

And yet although the world appears to have moved on. In its attitude to women, very little has changed. We are still viewed as less than men, still expected to give everything of ourselves to everyone else for little or often no recompense. And she’s angry.

It’s this anger and frustration I allow to flow through me as I garden and as these words spill on to the page. It’s certainly an activating energy and one, now that I’ve felt it, I can never go back from, never shy away from.

There are moments where I think, it would be safer to stay in my little glass box. But like the bird I long to be free, to spread my wings, to experience the feeling of soaring high up above the trees and I know I won’t get that if I stay.

So I’ll continue to put my hands in the soil, to recharge my energy with that of Mother Nature’s, to inch that door open and guide myself to freedom with kindess and compassion. I’ll continue to speak on the things that matter to me, to make a difference to the lives of the women I come across on my journey. Because like the bird, i’m not meant to be contained.

If this resonated and you’re ready to learn how to have your garden support your mind throughout the seasons then click below to work with me 1:1 on Create your Dream Garden.

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