Attachment styles (of baby birds)

Sometimes the mirror of our painful parts arrives while experiencing marvelous things like baby birds.

I hate that this is true.

"One baby-bird-mouth hinged wide open like an infinite yawn. The other baby-bird-mouth remained closed in the background." — catch up here

The open beak stayed open so long that the baby bird appeared desperate, longing and reaching as if it would never get what it needed. Likely untrue—the baby bird would be fed and have exactly what it needed—and it was me aching in that moment while the baby bird waited in the space of not exactly knowing.

desperate (dĕs′pər-ĭt)
suffering or driven by great need or distress

I looked away. The desperation was too much.

But wait, wasn't there a second bird? I peered back into the nest.

The closed beak in the background was easy to miss with that big beak right in front of my one eyeball that was gazing through the gap between deck boards. The second baby bird was reduced to the corner of the nest, looking dejected and rejected.

I looked away again. I couldn't handle feeling dejection or rejection either, so I skillfully tossed them aside and got back to feeling baby-bird magic. I told myself they were just fine, and in fact, they were.

Later that day though the baby birds crept back to mind, accompanied with a light version, just under the surface, of desperation and dejection. For years, I had been the bird in the background, desperate too but closed down and making myself invisible without even realizing it. What a rotten situation that was. Who wants to be reminded of something like that? So I had done what came naturally: looked away.

And of course, there I was reminded of it later anyway. Tossing aside a hard thing just tosses it to a later hour or day or year or decade. I hate that it's the uncomfortable or difficult parts of ourselves that are in most need of looking towards. I also hate that too often the mirror of our painful parts surfaces while experiencing marvelous things like baby birds.

So there I was, thinking of myself as the withdrawn bird in the background and feeling that desperation and dejection. Gosh, if birds had attachment styles*:

• Shut-down-beaked bird = Avoidant attachment
  Leave me alone
  I don't feel safe with others

• Wide-open-beaked bird = Anxious attachment
  Don't leave me
  I don't feel safe alone

* As I see it anyway. A perk of not being a therapist or expert about this stuff is that I can talk about birds and attachment styles at the same time.

There are two other attachment styles of course, secure and fearful-avoidant, but, well, there were only two birds in the nest.

Sometimes I wonder if the avoidant attachment pattern usually comes joined with not inhabiting your body. They kind of click together, sadly. I also wonder if people with a secure attachment pattern typically inhabit their bodies. Anyway, ideally we'd all have graduated from childhood with a secure attachment style, but maybe you're like me and didn't. And maybe you're like me and it gets in the way of truly living.

It took me loads of emotional work and practice to improve my attachment tendencies, and while that fact can be kind of rotten news on top of a rotten situation, it was wholeheartedly worth the work. I didn't wake up one morning healed with a shiny new secure attachment style; lurking just under the surface is avoid-avoid-avoid, waiting for any needed protection or saving. But after all that difficult work, living feels a thousand times better.

Before, I was numb to living. I couldn't have even exerted the energy to be interested in the baby birds.

Now, I was alive to living. I went, I saw, I felt, I lived.

emotional progression of witnessing baby birds