A text message buzzed my phone one spring day a couple years ago. It was a concerned neighbor unsure what to do about two fledgling hawks on the ground in her front yard.

Inquiries like this are a somewhat regular occurrence. Friends and family know me as a bird lover, so they send their ornithological inquiries my way. This one—what to do about babies out of the nest—would be on my bird FAQ page, if I had such a thing.

It is fine to return a baby bird to the nest if you can see and reach it. The idea that the parents will abandon a nestling if you touch it is a very persistent myth, probably designed to get children to leave baby birds alone.

Usually, the answer is to do nothing. Fledglings, especially raptors, often leave the nest before they are fully flight-ready. They are great climbers, and the parents are usually watching over and caring for them, even if you don’t see them.

Avian 911

That was not the case here. I asked for a photo, and it was immediately clear that these two young Cooper’s hawks were in trouble.

Sometimes adolescents overestimate their abilities, and this pair had probably fallen from their nest high in the nearby ginkgo tree while exploring its branches. Although already in their adult plumage, fledglings like this can only fly short distances, and they had exhausted themselves in their efforts to return to safety.

They were lethargic, their movements labored and uncoordinated. Their normally piercing yellow-orange eyes were dull and lifeless. I rushed home, grabbed the dog’s crate and a thick pair of gloves, and called the local raptor rehab.

The kind and hard-working volunteers at the rehab received their new patients quickly and professionally, and took over from there. Both birds were badly dehydrated. I checked in later that day and learned that one was hanging on, but the other had died within an hour of reaching the facility.

Nature can be unforgiving, and my intervention had been too late. But a few weeks later, I received a much happier call: the second hawk had fully recovered, and was ready to return to the wild.

Transformation

Later that day, another bird-text arrived. In the attached video, a rehab volunteer gently placed a different, larger dog crate in an open field with woods nearby and opened the door.

Nothing happened.

Then, with some gentle coaxing, a notably bigger, much healthier-looking Cooper’s hawk stepped into the open door. It seemed a bit bewildered. For essentially all its life, it had been constrained in a small enclosure. It was limiting, but it was known.

Perhaps it was best to stay put.

As it stood there, it seemed to be asking itself, who would I be without walls around me? What now?

Seconds later, instinct took over. An internal transformation occurred. The young hawk remembered who it was, and it knew what to do.

It spread its wings, grey-brown and barred with black, leapt forward with newfound strength, and took flight.

Who Would You Be?

Perhaps you have asked yourself a similar question—certainly I have.

For essentially all of my adult life, I have dealt with periods of depression, some short and some longer, some mild and some deep, but ever-present.

In recent years, however, I have begun catching myself bewildered, suddenly noticing that those walls of lethargy and heaviness and apathy were no longer there, hesitating like the hawk on the doorstep of freedom.

It is a strange sensation to look up one day and find the cage door open. When did that happen? How long did it take me to notice?

Standing there with a vast, depression-less sky before me, I have sometimes found myself frozen in the unfamiliarity of the experience.

Bewildered

That strange bewilderment—literally, “to be lured into the wilds”—arose from the fact that I did not have an immediate answer when faced with the question, who am I without depression. I could not even imagine it.

For you, it might not be depression, but there is almost certainly something—something that is defining who you are and what you can do. Often it has been there so long that you no longer even notice it.

If you found that constraint suddenly removed, would you know what to do? Would you know who you are?

Answering that question is more difficult for us than the wild creatures.

Humans long ago traded the certainty of instinct for the possibility of insight. Because of that evolutionary bargain, our answers to “who am I now” are not as immediate as for the young Coop.

For us, the time spent frozen in the doorway can extend much longer. It can last a lifetime, if we’re not careful.

For us, distracted as we are by all that thinking, we can fail to even notice that the door is open.  

Ask Now

That’s why it is important to ask these questions now, even if they seem unanswerable.

• Who would I be without anxiety?
• Who would I be without impostor syndrome?
• Who would I be without loneliness or isolation?
• Who would I be without the weight of perfectionism?
• Who would I be without shame?
• Who would I be without health problems?
• Who would I be without comparing myself to others?
• Who would I be without fear of failure?

Fill in the blank with your own “who would I be” question, then let yourself sink deeply into the inquiry.

Visualize it. Feel it as if it were true right now.

Asking now helps you stay alert to opportunity.

Asking now helps ensure you don’t fail to notice the open door.

Asking now helps you notice walls you didn't even know were there.

Asking now helps you transform.

Real Constraints

This is not to suggest that all our constraints are self-imposed, or that we can simply wish them away. Many are very real.

We do not have unlimited time. Most of us do not have unlimited money. We have important responsibilities. We encounter hardships.

Illnesses, both physical and mental, can be persistent, even permanent. Anyone who has struggled with depression or anxiety or chronic disease knows that.  Even if you do not suffer from them personally, you might be responsible for caring for a loved one who does.

Yes, some of those walls are structural. They cannot be removed. They must simply be accepted.

But many others are thin and weak, built from the rotted lumber of limiting beliefs and useless baggage, some thrown up carelessly by others, but most of our own making.

Some are altogether imaginary, and this is why asking yourself who you would be without them now is so important.

A Powerful Question

Finally, you should ask now because the question itself is a powerful tool.

For us humans, merely asking the question can be the key that turns the lock, the hammer that breaks down the walls.

For us, often if we can just notice the walls, envision them gone, and feel what it would be like without them, we can free ourselves. We can transform in a moment just as the rehabilitated Cooper’s hawk did.

So, don’t wait for the cage door to open. Ask now, and then get to work tearing down those walls with all your might.

Who would you be without whatever it is that is holding you back?

Begin your inquiry, because you need to find out. You need to take flight.

Until next time,

Greg