One day the bird’s owner, while doing some much-needed house cleaning, decides to move the cage outside.
For the first time, the bird sees other birds flying free. The bird watches them diving through the air, singing and playing, wrestling in trees, and cooing and pecking one another. The caged bird immediately feels resentful:
“Those birds should be in cages”.
The bird tries to ignore them but finds everything about them vexing.
“How shallow and irresponsible they are!”
Even their lovely singing is torturous to the bird.
“I wish they would stop making that noise!”
Finally, after a long day of cleaning, the owner returns the bird to the dark, shadowy room.
The bird sighs with relief; never questioning the bars or considering the possibility of a life beyond the cage.
I feel a lot like the bird in this story. I know that if I take my "cage of insecurities" to the outside, I’ll never be happy. I will just continue to resent people who are free.
I do my best to avoid social interaction by putting up barriers to protect me from being let down. These barriers are my own insecurities:
“Why would you expect them to be nice to you? They’re laughing AT you not with you, just walk away so that they can’t make an even bigger fool out of you”
“You are so socially awkward! Nothing really changed since the bullying in primary school, you’re STILL an outsider!”
“The only place you will EVER feel safe is at home with your parents. You can’t handle yourself outside, where it’s so hard to make friends. People will eventually reject you when they’ve had enough; you can’t trust them”
“Why would he ever really be interested in you? Just because a guy finds you physically attractive, it doesn’t mean anything. Just take the flirtation and leave. Just like you did with your other exes”
I know I need to get these thoughts out of my head, but it is a process and I'm struggling with it. If anyone else feels the same way, I'm asking you to please reach out. Maybe we can support each other
