From free spirit to caged bird

This phrase came to me, in the midst of another attack of chronic repressed, unexpressed, aggrieved emotions.

‘From free spirit to caged bird’.

I had to let the person know. The person whom I had been trying to fervently convey how ‘stuck’ I felt in my life.

These words, with all the depth, meaning, and visceral reactions, they invoke for me, don’t have the same depth and meaning for the person I am trying to convey them to. 

I couldn’t say the words of course. I could only type them. On a message.

My verbal expression: the ability to ‘say out loud’ and to ‘voice’ has diminished over the last five years, at an increasing and alarming rate. Writing became my saviour. Something I had never in a million years considered would be part of me or in me. Until it became the only way I could express myself. 

Our brains really are wired to survive and will find ways to help us expel and deal with painful emotions, as best it can. For some, it might be through song, music or dance. It could be cooking, painting, or pottery. Some form of creative expression. Our brains help us find a way to expel stress. Not a painless process. But a process, nonetheless. 

And so, I feel a pull to try to share, in bite-sized, manageable pieces, the depth of this pain, to others. ‘We are hard-wired for connection’ as brain-based research and neuroscience now finally prove to us. There is a need to connect, even in silence, for us to survive.

These six words - from free spirit to caged bird - carry the weight of generations of women, who I have realised, had no choice but to live like ‘caged birds’.

The illusion of freedom. But not ‘real’ freedom. The wires may be thin, and there may be ‘visibility’ of the outside world. But no matter how thin the wires are, they still do the job of keeping the caged bird within its ‘allowed space’.

A few years ago, in the quest to find answers to my inexplicable loss of ability to show up and speak up, I stumbled on ‘generational trauma’ and ‘intergenerational trauma’.

I did not know it was ‘thing’, when it first came to me. But it doesn’t take long does it, to find out; living in this ‘Information at Your Fingertips’ generation (IAYF was an actual acronym I first came across in the 90’s during my time working at Microsoft. I never knew then; it would become reality). 

It doesn’t take long nowadays for the Google Gods to give you some clues, to get you started, whenever you are curious or looking for answers. And so began my journey of learning about generational and intergenerational trauma.

I started to see patterns and links between the generation before me and what was playing out in my own life. 

How much must someone have gone through in five decades of life, after moving seas and cities near and far, to still not feel ‘free’. 

These words applied to many women I have seen, past and present, who started out being young, free-spirited, vivacious, talented, clever women. But after decades of suppression (with varying levels of subtlety), ended up feeling like caged birds. 

If you are reading this, I am wondering if you can relate.

Painfully I have to say, I, of course, do. 

If you do, I wish I could sit with you and exchange our stories, our voices, with honesty, over a nice comforting cuppa.

Much Love