101. The Birds Are Chirping

September 15, 2023•Ep. 101•5 min 36 sec

Nature and AnimalsBirds, Finding The Silver Lining

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Today we encourage you to quiet your mind and your mouth, so you can hear the sounds of nature.

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If you have anxiety, depression or any sense of the world around you, you know that not *everything* is going to be okay. In fact, many things aren’t okay and never will be!

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Hi Nora. My okay thing is this. A couple of years ago I started walking. I probably started out for the purpose of exercise but then I soon realized I wasn’t really walking very fast and I wasn’t really breaking a sweat. It was more about just enjoying walking in nature and I realized that before it seems like this hiking craze started.

Um, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m walking and hiking now that I’m noticing it more, but I belong to all these Facebook groups about hiking, and I have the AllTrails app, and I just really love walking. In nature and especially early in the morning when it’s quiet and peaceful and there’s not a lot of people around and you just hear

the sounds of nature. And so I’ve become, I guess, more aware of nature. And recently, um, my husband leaves for work very early in the morning, around 4 o’clock in the morning. And I usually get up with him and make coffee and pack his lunch and… Walk him to the door, and one day I was helping him bring something to his truck, and it was still dark out, and I noticed that the birds were already chirping.

At four o’clock in the morning, while it was still dark out, the birds were already chirping, and they were loud! It wasn’t just one bird, it was a lot of birds. And then the next time I went outside at that time, I noticed it again. And I don’t know if this has always been a thing, or if I’ve just noticed it, but I never notice birds chirping.

Practically in the middle of the night while it’s still dark out. And so now, after my husband leaves for work, sometimes I stay up and do things around the house. But then on the times I decide to go back to sleep, and even though it’s the summer and the air conditioner’s on, I’ll open the windows in my bedroom just so I can hear the birds chirping.

As I fall back to sleep, and it’s like my own soothing sounds app, and my cat even enjoys it too. He jumps up in his perch, that’s window height, and I open the window, and he listens to the birds, and I listen to the birds, and it just feels so peaceful, and sounds so peaceful, and for a little while, I just have that peace.

Until I have to wake up in an hour or so to get ready for work.