Have you ever felt like a parrot in a cage?

Some birds pull their feathers out until they're bald and they say it's because they're stressed because they feel "trapped in their cage".

Isn't that what we do to ourselves by beating ourselves up for feeling so weak and unable to fly from our cage of fear? When we're stressed, we always turn in on ourselves looking for health worries, telling ourselves we don't deserve happiness, we're pathetic etc etc.

So how did we end up in our cage and how do we open the cage door to fly again?

We're often born insecure, sensitive, intense, a worrier and deep thinking etc. As a result as we grow older we lack confidence in our own abilities, always analysing ourselves, questioning whether we're making the right decisions, always doubting ourselves and feeling guilt, trying to please others to protect ourselves from more hurt etc.

We're also knocked back each time we have a bad experience which further knocks what little confidence we had. We absorb every hurt, every pain like a sponge until we can absorb no more.

The anxiety these events cause are then played out in our fears which make us feel trapped. This trapped feeling causes stress so we develop ways to combat this stress through perhaps OCD (actual or just thinking). We turn in on ourselves. We feel "no good" which can lead to self harming and a sense of hoplessness leading to perhaps overdoses.

We can't see any escape. We become that parrot in a cage, frightened to open the cage door but feeling so low and panicky in the small safe world we live in.

We can ease those feelings through medication but they can't cure our past or our fears. They can help us open the cage door and even ease our weight enough to help us to fly but without them we'd crash because the causes are still there untreated.

The other choices are to confront our fears, come to terms with our past or change the way we think. It just depends on the causes.

There are different ways to open a cage door depending on what has created the lock but I always believe that when we feel ready, there is a key to every lock and once opened, we can fly and be free once more.