My Little Teacher

It started last Tuesday when I was on teacher training.  It was evening time, not yet dark, and I was in my room and there was this intermittent strange noise, part thud, part scraping, but pretty loud, like it was happening just outside my room.  Sure enough, when I looked out the door to the little balcony, there was a bird sitting on a rafter there a few feet from me.  Yes, that was definitely a bird sort of noise.  It seemed he was trying to fly through the tiny little triangular window up near the ceiling.

Well, this went on for the next couple days until teacher training was over and I came home.  For all I know, he is still there doing the same thing.  As I gathered more information about what was happening, I concluded that he was trying to land on the little tiny sill outside the window, but there wasn’t room for him there.  He spent hours and hours flying back and forth, hitting his little head on the window sometimes, flapping his wings, trying to grab on. 

At first, it was really annoying.  He woke me up those last few mornings between 4:53 and 5:10.  But mostly I felt sorry for him.  And my main thought was, “Please, Lord, don’t let me be like this bird.”  I really don’t want to be someone stuck in a pattern, just doing the same thing over and over again without the awareness or willingness to try something different, hitting my head against the wall.

Around that same time, I was reading in one of Brené Brown’s books about the difference between sympathy and empathy—that sympathy creates distance and empathy creates connection.  That fits right in with my own understanding of yoga, which is another word for connection.  It is so much more useful to see how we are the same and how even when I haven’t had the exact experience someone else has had, that I have had similar experiences that help me to understand the other person instead of just saying “poor you” (glad I don’t have to worry about that because you are so different from me).

Brené talks about how frustrating it can be to have a conversation with someone who wants understanding while insisting that you can’t understand.  I recently had a conversation like that.  It felt to me like this other person was so focused on our differences that there was no way to bridge the gap.  I totally could have handled it better, stayed more spacious.  I felt a little bit like we were both stuck in our own habits of thinking or acting.  It didn’t feel good and it didn’t get us anywhere.

Part of the reason listening to that bird was so painful to me is that I know what that experience is like.  I am really sorry that that little bird was having that experience.  And I am grateful that he came along to be my teacher.  Having that image in my mind is very helpful to me in thinking about who and how I want to be.  Not getting stuck is not just an idea—I just picture and hear that bird and I feel motivated to do whatever I can to keep growing.