Close to us here in London is a man-made pond with many water-birds. This summer we've watched many baby birds hatch, get bigger and fly off.
One such 'family' was an Egyptian Goose pair with 7 goslings! We watched their progress with curiosity. One of them had what looked like an injury to a wing. It was hard to tell - we could never
get close enough.
Then, about 3 weeks ago, we noticed that they had flown off and were never on this pond anymore. All 7... except for that one with the hurt wing. :( My heart filled with empathy had a really hard time with this.
About a week ago I started worrying more. It's a man-made pond with very high brick walls.
Because the gosling can't fly, it can't get out and find natural food sources. Many people come and toss food for the birds every day. The water birds (coots, moorhens, tufted duck, swans and seagulls) are all pretty aggressive and they push and peck each other out the way to get to the food morsels.... but this one seems like a sensitive bird. (More material for my soft heart!)
it seems to
stand very little chance in the thrashing about for food..... It moves a lot slower than the rest. When the birds spot someone tossing food, some of them fly there (FAST!!) and some of the almost seem to run on water to get there (quite a funny sight!).
Not my poor gosling.... It's always last to get going, almost as if it's lost hope already. If you have a soft heart like me, this might make you feel sad
too.
And then, when it eventually gets to the food source, it's all gone. If it makes it in time, the other birds are so aggressive that it seems to hang back and hope for the best.
The challenge is that it's stuck on this body of water. There's nowhere it can walk out the pond with the high sides, and so there's nowhere
else it can obtain food. I've seen it nibble on dry sticks - their natural food is grass and seeds. And there's not a blade of grass in sight on the pond....
I finally had enough of worrying yesterday and contacted the RSPCA. I resolved to make sure this bird has food too until they can come and rescue it.
Late yesterday afternoon I
went with some seeds and tried to scatter it right in front of this bird so it could peck at it. Alas.... the gosling didn't seem to see it. And actually, it looked like it was trying to 'duck' the seeds falling close to it. It looked like it had been harassed and it's confidence broken down so much that it was afraid of tiny falling things.
(And I could understand that! Isn't that what happens to us too?
Sometimes we lose confidence in an area of our life due to constant criticism, being put down, rejection, judgment..... and then we just don't want to even try again.)
Another family of bird-feeders came to stand next to me and I pointed out the bird with the hurt wing. I told them the story and they went out of their way to make sure this gosling got extra. They tossed pieces of food to get the other birds off
in a different direction... and then tossed some right in front of 'my' bird. Over and over!!
And guess what... it looked like it started to gain confidence and realised it COULD fight for it's food! It started getting more assertive with going for a piece of food even in the presence of the other birds. Previously, it didn't - it hung back or got out the way for the other birds.
With every mouthful (beakful??) that the gosling got, we all cheered!! I was so grateful that I spoke up and that the family cared enough to make a special effort. I could go home feeling more relaxed, knowing this gosling had something in it's tummy... until later today, when I'll go and do it again with Andrew's help.
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And this made me think.....
There are some of us that don't like aggressive behaviour around us, and hang back. We don't want to get in the firing line and therefore never speak up, or 'get our piece of food'. We don't
get what we need, because we're too afraid of the consequences (being pecked at, harassed, shouted or screamed at, judged, criticized in harsh ways....)
And so that's what this week's article is about.... my reluctance to speak up or deal with conflict. Actually - totally avoiding conflict for most of my life... and what it means to have overcome a large chunk of it. Read it below -
I'd love your thoughts below the article or via email.
Here's something I learned late in life - and am still working
on:
We have a right to ask to have our needs met. If you want to gain your confidence in difficult situations, and don't know HOW yet, below is an opportunity to learn through the workshop that Alison Gitelson and I are hosting again next week. Details are right at the bottom.
(PS -
I want to add this. We have a right to ask to have our needs met... and, like elsewhere in life, we don't always get what we ask for. That's a DIFFERENT topic altogether. Fact still is - if we don't ask, or don't speak up when we're unhappy, the answer is always 'no'.)
