Birds

[Ayanna]

The only noises I hear this morning are the war songs of the birds. They are so beautiful. I just sit in the garden and listen to them. Some birds come very close to me and look at me with curiosity. I will give them some nuts to eat. I love interacting with the birds. They are so full of life and so happy.
The squirrels are also watching me. They do not want to miss out on the nuts.
What a difference to the shouting that I woke up to not so long ago…. It is still in my head every day.
But the birds are so noisy, they override these memories this morning and make me focus on the here and now. Nature is a great healer ….

[lover of no contact]

So true Ayanna,

When I am on the receiving end of being treated badly (could be work colleagues, or so-called friends who are probably more frenemys than friends lol, or my children (affected and influenced by abuser)), I find respite whilst walking outside surrounded by nature. I feel safe and calm and internally say to myself, “well the birds can’t hurt me”, ” and the ducks can’t scream obscenities at me”, “and those squirrels won’t give me contemptuous looks and criticise me”. “Even those flowers won’t blame me (and me alone) for all that goes wrong”, “that body of water won’t use a harsh tone of voice with me”.

Sounds crazy but it works for me. Its people I have to watch. And I find it so hard to call people out on their behaviour if they’re bossing me, being rude, blaming me. I go quiet, say nothing but then I’m left resentful. I’m afraid to stand up for myself or ask the questions ‘Why are you speaking to me like that? Or why are you using that tone of voice with me?’ I’m afraid of ‘causing waves’ or ‘conflict’, not keeping the peace. But then I’m left with feeling awful and they skip off into the sunset having dumped their issues onto me.

So hard to change my patterns of a life-time that I developed trying to ‘survive’ the abusive situations.

[Ayanna]

I react like this too. It is lack of assertiveness. I feel unable to challenge them in the right way. If I did it would come out inappropriately, full of PTSD. I say nothing in the end and dwell on my anger.
But I have the intention to change that. I want to address this issue in therapy.
Soon I am going to tell some so called friends what I think of them. I have no problem losing them, because I do not need horrible people in my life. Some of them disappeared and made themselves unreachable. They are gone anyway. I keep them on fb in order to make them jealous with my success stories, because I know they cannot keep up with me. That is my little game.

[Bridget Jones Is Free]

When I was at the refuge I bought some bird boxes from Poundland and hung them in the refuge garden and in front of my bedroom window, the staff smiled at me…
I do that too, sit in the garden and enjoy nature…he warned me he would dig any vegetable I plant…
I love birds, I teach my kids to enjoy nature too…it brings sanity to my life and I also enjoy the interaction. I take pictures of my garden, the veggies and flowers and inundate fcbk with photographs to show so called friends I keep strong. He cant bring me down.
Assertiveness is an important skill. Most of us find it hard to react to nasty people. Abuse is everywhere. Silence can make you feel resentful but I find it can also liberate you, why waste time and energy on nasty people?
I prefer using my energy making my birds happy 🙂

[Suntree]

I sat on the wall yesterday and even in a busy town there was this moment of peace and quiet where the only noise I could hear was the birds singing.
Even for a moment my anxiety which would have normally triggered in this situation was silent too.
For a moment everything was just right.
It didn’t last long but it was there and I will hang on to that as a huge step forward and another bit of the light coming into my life.

[Author]

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