Why the birds sing louder now

Have you noticed the birds seem to have grown louder in the past months? Biologists and conservationists credit COVID-19 for providing a more quiet soundscape for our feathered friends. This less noisy soundscape has empowered birds to communicate more effectively without having to stress their vocals to sing over traffic and humans.  

Less noise and the birds have regained their voice. 

And this is how today's episode of Internal Comms Pro: The Podcast starts out.  

Yes, you’ll hear real birds chirping in the episode. A friend of mine asked me, "How in the world do you come up with this sh*t?"

Keep reading if you want to hear the crazy back story behind my bird inspiration….

The Bird Backstory

For some, like myself, quarantine has provided a less noisy environment. As a mom of two, very active middle-school girls life is always on the go. 

Life before quarantine consisted of waking before sunrise, getting ready for school, then work, then running to kids to school, then back to work, then to meetings, then back to school, back to practice, then back to another practice for the other daughter, then late work meeting, then email, then homework, more homework, then dinner, then more work, then crash and oh, “Mom, I need laundry washed for tomorrow” back up, then crash again.

Sound familiar to anyone?  

I heard a quote once that the “London Bells ring louder depending on where you’re standing.” And depending on where you are in your life journey, COVID-19 sounds different for each of us. For some, this very article will resonate and for others, it won’t.  

And that’s okay.  

Can't hear yourself think?

For me personally, quarantine has eliminated certain noises that stressed my own voice, the voices of others in my life and my listening capacity. Constantly being on the go was drowning things I needed to hear. Looking back, I couldn’t hear myself think but here’s the even sicker part: I didn’t know it.  

Not knowing that you can’t hear yourself think is, well, deafening. If you are in this place, I am with you, I hear you.  

Now that things are “quiet”- meaning, I’m not in this never-ending on-the-go state, I hear things I haven’t heard before. Because I’m not on the road running to practices, events, work, etc. I have had something I haven’t had in a while: time. 

Time to think, to exercise, to listen, to hear, to really hear, to see, to really see.

I’ve noticed spring.  

I’ve noticed what my middle school daughters might really be saying when they get into an argument or fussy about the current situation or sad or bored or tired or hungry or they need their mom to be light hearted and dig that spoon right into the ice cream bucket right along with them and to laugh while trying to learn a Tik Tok dance.  

My listening skills have sharpened as I’m tuning into the feelings of my team, my family, my little nieces and nephews who need an online “game night” or phone call with their cousins.  

I’m tuned into my letter writing with my older nephew who is at boot camp completely isolated from his family and wondering if he will get to come home on time and I know that Aunt Sara needs to channel whatever dig-down-deep encouragement I can give because who knows if those words are going to make the difference for him that day.  

Now pardon the interruption…

This is of course a work in progress. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea that I’m some kind of sonar ninja now.  

Literally, I had just finished writing this article and raced downstairs to make some eggs. I saw my fiance was on a call, so I didn’t want to interrupt, made my eggs, and went on with the day. Later, I found out that he was upset that I didn’t include him in my egg eggstravaganza and well, needless to say the day went sunny side down. Mainly, because I failed to really hear him. Yep, egg is on my face.  

So, I went for a quiet walk and tried to listen and replay what my partner was really trying to say.  

The answers seem to lie within - within the quiet.

When we are too busy and stretched, this stress becomes noise and we literally can’t hear the answers.

I often wondered if not being stressed in quite the same way has awakened an inner whisper, a calling, a muse of some sorts. Or is this inner song always here and we couldn’t hear it over the soccer practices, the long to do list, family pressures, homework, math homework, work events, networking events, travel, people pleasing activities we do but we know we shouldn’t, and did I say math homework?  

Anyone experiencing this? Where are all the creative songs, writing, painting, creative problem solving, I’m seeing emerge - where is this all coming from? 

I’m not saying we aren’t stressed, but the stress that some of us were experiencing has quieted and what I’m saying is that I hear different things now.

When it is quiet, you can hear. You can hear others. You can hear yourself, your higher self. For me, without this quiet, I find that my behaviors manifested from a deaf place and into complaining, going negative, [insert whatever unhealthy behavior here]. 

This quiet has given me time to find inner solace and that is what I needed to become sane and to get on a path to respond and feel appropriately about what I perceive is happening.

Not to mention to hear the inner prompting for this very article and not to mention the way I should have responded in the egg fight.

For weeks now, I’ve been prompted to write this “birds now sing louder” article. I don’t know if it will be helpful but even if this resonates with one person, I supposed hitting the post button on this thing was worth it and if not, I consider this a test of listening to the inner voice or confirmation if quarantine really has messed up my brain.

My inner whisper wants to scream this...

Listen - from me to you, if you have a quiet whisper or an inner stirring to write, hit send on an email, publish an idea, pitch a solution, write a song, post a video, say “I’m sorry, I screwed up,” do it. I thank God for those that have impacted me by listening to their inner callings. It made the difference.

What if the person that wrote the song I’m listening to right now, didn’t listen to their inner whisper, then who knows, maybe this article never sees the light of day.

Depending on your current life situation and how you are juxtaposed with the London Bells, what can you hear now that you didn’t hear before? Listen to it.  

Like the birds, we’ve struggled to find our voice because we simply couldn’t hear. 

It took a worldwide pandemic to silence all that noise. Because it is now quiet, we can hear things we couldn’t hear before. We can re-train ourselves on how to respond appropriately. This crisis has allowed us to focus.

We hear the song of the internal - what is stirring on the inside. The inside of our companies, the inside of our employees' homes, the songs that are stirring in the heart and minds of our loved ones, our kids, our significant others and ourselves. 

Messages, thoughts, or inner callings we hear in those quiet moments manifest in responses that really take flight. 

So I suppose this article is a test.  

This whisper came to me to write this article several times now. Okay, I’ll be vulnerable and actually hit “send” to check my hearing. If I hear crickets, well I’m going back to the ice cream bucket or have egg on my face again.  

The listening and responding process can be messy, but at least we’re aware that something is there trying to guide us in the right direction. I suppose I always looked for answers outside myself, and well maybe this is a Dorothy kind of thing - the answer lies within.

And if you didn’t hear that, once again if this article struck a chord with you, let me know as I’m testing my new vocal chords to see if I heard the right notes of my inner whisper. Just comment or message me.

Hey, I’m curious...what sounds, whispers, inner stirrings are you hearing now that you couldn’t before? Yes, share it, hit send, I want to listen and so do others. Let’s see what takes flight. I can't wait to see if listening to the whisper works or if it's well, for the birds.