Listen for the Birdsong

First published on June 29, 2018

Before almost every coaching session I do, I spend around ten minutes split between two practices. In different ways, these help take me into the presence I feel enables me to do my best work. One of these - a centring exercise which some who have worked with me will recognise - I learnt from Joel Monk. It involves opening the nervous system to all the things that come to it, noticing them, and moving on, back to your attention, ready to notice what comes next. This is an eyes-open practice, and I have absolutely (via recommitting and MANY reps of bringing my attention back) become more aware of my peripheral vision, of my senses, of what I hear.

When I'm working from home, in the summer, I usually do these practices on our balcony, looking out over the view in the picture above. It is south west London - Battersea - not particularly city-like, given its location relatively near the centre of the city. But when I tune into what my hearing picks up - when I notice the incoming sounds, allow them to arise, and then return to noticing what arises next - the sounds are mostly city. It is the children from the school across the road, the sound of construction not too far away, the traffic on the various more main roads nearby. I see the sights of these, too, the cranes, the helicopters, the cars and vans driving past. I see them, notice them, and return to seeing what I notice next.

I find one of the most beautiful and centring things to notice while doing this exercise is nature. The movements of the leaves on a tree in the breeze, the ripples on the river in the sun, birds flying in the sky. This connects me to something deeper.

One day, after living in this flat for perhaps 15 months, I noticed a thought during my centring exercise: it's sad that there are no sounds of nature in this place. Just the sounds of the city.

And then I heard it. Birdsong. And not just one bird, but several, from different directions.

I almost couldn't believe it. I was pretty sure I had never noticed birdsong in several months of standing on that balcony many times a week for five minutes at a time. I had alwaysnoticed the traffic noises, the banging. The children had been the most joyous sound I heard - and still remain one of those.

But it touched me to hear the birdsong. And it made me think.

Next time I was practising, as I noticed a bird swoop by, I noticed another thought: I wonder if the birds are singing today. I hadn't noticed them up to that point. After I wondered if they were singing, there was a van passing by. And then - there they were.

And it turns out they are almost always there. Only once, since then, when I have had that thought, has it not been followed, shortly after, by noticing birdsong.

Our mind filters for things. It does its best and it keeps us sane. We couldn't cope with receiving all the information that is there in the world. It filters for what it thinks is important. The part of the brain that does this is the Reticular Activating System. It's why you see many L plates when you are learning to drive, and many To Let signs when you are moving house. There aren't more at that time, but your Reticular Activating System is filtering for them.

The problem with this is, it doesn't always get what is important right. And wherever you put your attention, it will think this is important and will show you more of it.

If you focus your thoughts on the idea that you live in a city, where there are buses and cars, construction and helicopters - and, yes, children. Then, you will hear those things. And you won't hear the birdsong.

Listen for the birdsong.