Look at the Birds of the Air. Help with Your Anxiety

Look at the birds of the air. Break the “magnetic” grip of anxiety. Discover how looking at and considering nature can ground your brain in providence.

Anxiety can be like a magnet. It can grab your attention and hold it in its grip.

This energy of focus can exhaust you and can cripple your movement.

Movement forward.

Movement out.

Because the movement is held to a focus.

The ‘what if this happens’ fear.

The ‘Theyre not going to like me’ glare.

You will have your own list of magnet fears.

Then someone says, ‘The Bible says to not worry,’ and they make out that worrying is some kind of sin, a failure in trusting God.

Another fear. Another failure.

The magnet gains more power, and we are held in its grip.

Look at the birds of the air

Recently, my wife and I have been playing a little game on our mobile phones.

It’s called Birdle.

In this game, you guess the name of the bird.

Two clues are provided. A blurry picture and the sound the bird makes.

There are five categories you have to get right

Food type – what the bird eats
Bird size
Foot function – climbing, swimming etc
Habitat
Name

With each correct answer given, the image becomes a little less blurry.

Once you have guessed it correctly, a little information about the bird is given.

I have learned a lot about our New Zealand bird life from this daily focus.

All the different colours and patterns. What they all eat and how they fly.

The app is available in versions for India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

My interest in looking at birds has been heightened by living here at Kawakawa Bay, which has an incredible bird population.

I have some bird neighbours called godwits.

Godwits can fly non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand without eating, drinking, or resting.

They take about 8-9 days to do this.

They sleep while flying by apparently switching off half their brain to allow it to sleep while the other half of the brain keeps the godwit flying.

I look at the birds. I consider the birds. It helps with anxiety and depression.

Look at the birds. Consider the Lillies.

Jesus gave some wise teaching about anxiety and worry. He pointed his listeners to nature and providence.

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

And why do you worry about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”

For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I think Jesus wanted his followers to look and consider something different to what was magnetically grabbing their attention.

Look and consider

For that word ‘look’, the first listeners of Jesus would have heard the word emblépō

emblépō (from en, “engaged in” and blépō, “look”)–properly, stare (look) at with a “locked-in gaze”; look at in a sustained, concentrated way, i.e. with special “interest, love or concern” Biblehub

It’s not just a fleeting glance. This is an engaged stare. Having a ‘locked in’ sustained, concentrated observation.

Those birds, when I am looking at them, they have my full 100% attention.

The other word he uses is consider. katamanthánō

katamanthánō (from katá, “down to a point, exactly according to,” which intensifies manthánō, “learn”)–properly, thoroughly (exactly) learn; to grasp something conclusively by considering it carefully (AS). It is only used in Mt 6:28. Biblehub

I want to go deep in my consideration of everything about those birds. What they eat, how they sound, what their breeding plumage is like etc

My focus is getting to know everything about them.

This is not a fleeting interest. I am looking. I am considering.

The more I do this, the more I am grounded in the here and now.

My brain gets relief from the magnetic pull of the unknown.

There is something known about those Godwits, and there is something to be known.

Grounded brain

What would happen in the physical circuitry of your brain if you were to spend an hour a day looking at and considering something in nature.

The activity of a worm
The texture of a leaf
The colours of a sunrise
The sparkle of a starlight night
The smell of a rose

Perhaps you would grow a knowing of providence in all things.

Maybe you would sense a growing groundedness in what is within your control and what it is outside of your control.

You might become more focused on the day you have today and not on the day of tomorrow.

Making an appointment

Recently, I had an email from a reader in response to my post about The “Monkey Circus” of the Mind.

He shared the struggle of going to bed with anxious thoughts going around in his head.

He shared these words.

I’m so easily overwhelmed. I don’t know how to stop it. I want to be more grounded. Please pray for me.

I responded with a suggestion.

Just before going to bed, write in pen on a piece of paper 10 items of anxiety
Underneath them write ‘ I will worry about them at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.’
Do this for 40 days

The monkeys need to know they have their own special time.

I think the birds of the air need their own special time.

Why not make an appointment with the therapist of nature and look and consider?

Godwits God

Mullet jumps
Crabs claw
Whybill throw their scarf
I stand and watch in awe

Tide rushes in
Covering creatures hole
Birdclaw prints washed away
Silence floods the soul

Godwits god
Pied stilts stilt
Terns dive into rippling waves
All held within music lilt

I take it in
So much to see
Immeasurable activity
Right in front of me

Creeping cross
Wide bays floor
Little shellfish crawls
Oblivious to it all

Full moon shines above
Tidal flows within its grip
How majestic is the knowing
Of all that makes this tick

I dive into it all
More of splendor I want to know
Help me to be quiet
Caught up in silent undertow

Quotes to consider

Nature and birdwatching can offer a great deal of stability. In the life of someone living with daily mental health issues, these consistencies can act as an anchor to the present and provide grounding. Joe Harkness, Bird Therapy

I had also started to recognise just how positive I felt when I was immersed in the world of birds. My worries seemed to fade into insignificance and when I was feeling stressed, if I counteracted it with some time outside, watching them, it drifted off like birds do, in a stiff breeze. Joe Harkness, Bird Therapy

It’s reassuring to know that the garden birds are there, even when I’m not. Joe Harkness, Bird Therapy

In that moment, watching the flock of finches, I was allowing myself to become lost and absorbed in the sights in front of me. In these early days of my interest in birdwatching, I was still burdened by an inability to manage and regulate my mental health. Birdwatching quickly became my escape route and I started to notice that when I was out, on my own, experiencing nature and birds in a personal and intimate way, I was more relaxed than I’d ever been before. My breathing rate slowed and I closed my mind to repetitive thoughts and worries. My only focus was observing birds and learning about them. I was losing myself in birds, in a positive way. Joe Harkness, Bird Therapy

Binoculars, and a hawk-like vigilance, reduce the disadvantage of myopic human vision. J. A. Baker

There is an unreasonable joy to be had from the observation of small birds going about their bright, oblivious business. Grant Hutchison

Birds will give you a window, if you allow them. They will show you secrets from another world– fresh vision that, though it is avian, can accompany you home and alter your life. They will do this for you even if you don’t know their names– though such knowing is a thoughtful gesture. They will do this for you if you watch them. Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds: A Bird Book for Adults

That little owl with a call as steady as my heartbeat was telling anyone who would listen, ‘I am here.’ We were listening. We’re listening still. Heather Durham, Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust

I sat there and my love to him poured out more and more, and, lo, he flew down to a stump, and then to my knee. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the important thing is the love that goes out from oneself. Agnes Grinstead Anderson, Approaching the Magic Hour: Memories of Walter Anderson

Questions to answer

Consider this statement. ‘What gets your attention, gets you’. What gets your attention and you would rather it not?
What sort of birds live where you live? How much time do you give them?
What experiences of nature can you mindfully enjoy today where you live?

Formation exercise

Make an appointment with yourself this week to spend one hour in a ‘look and consider’ experience of connecting with nature. Focus all your attention on that bird, flower, lily, stream, mountain, etc.