Hummingbird Moments

Several days ago, I chatted with a friend of mine. He told me what a friend of his told him that really stuck with him, and I wanted to share it with you.

This friend of his told him about “Hummingbird Moments”.

Hummingbirds are fascinating little creatures. A resting hummingbird takes about 250 breaths per minute! Their heart rate can be as fast as 1260 beats per minute! They pump their wings roughly 53 beats per second in normal flight and can fly forward, backward, and even upside down! Ones we see in Manitoba usually have iridescent colours and some even have ruby red throats! (Yes, I know, that’s a lot of exclamation marks, but hummingbirds are just that awesome!)

When you see a hummingbird feeding, poking its head in and out of flowers or feeders, you can’t help but stop and stare. And when I say “stop”, I mean it is practically impossible not to stop everything you’re doing. No matter what it is. No matter how important the thing you are doing or the words you are saying may seem, you stop. Almost holding your breath and yet, strangely, at the same time, breathing deeper as you watch the bird.

The hummingbird captivates you. You’re mesmerized by its stunning beauty, its unique flight pattern, its marvellous speed and accuracy, the humming sound of its seemingly invisible wings, and its incredibly tiny body size. You try to track its movements with your eyes. Like the hummingbird cast a spell on you, you don’t move. You’re still.

In that moment, nothing else matters. Your awareness is fully on the hummingbird. Watching. You’re fully aware. Fully alive. Experiencing the present moment. Being.

In that moment, you remember what life is really about. You reconnect to nature and your natural state. You reconnect to life itself. To the beauty, the flow, the ease, the harmony of life.

When the bird vanishes from sight, and you return to what you were doing or what you were saying, somehow it doesn’t feel quite the same as it did before you saw the hummingbird. There’s a different quality - a calmness, an openness, a lightness-  now present in you, as you carry on with your activity. You feel…better.

You just experienced a “hummingbird moment”. Wouldn’t it be nice to have more “hummingbird moments”?

Does this calmness, openness, and lightness happen only when you see a hummingbird?

No, it happens whenever you reconnect to your natural state. Whenever you reconnect to life itself. Whenever you reconnect to the natural beauty, flow, ease, harmony of life. 

It is always present and available. You simply have to choose to be aware of it. You simply have to choose to experience it. When you experience that connection to the flow and harmony of life itself, the calmness, peace, joy, love, and appreciation come with no effort. Like magic.

The “magic” doesn’t come from the hummingbird. The “magic” is in you. To access your “magic”, you need only to chose to be in your natural state of flow.

How?

Bring your awareness to your heart. Drop your mental energy from your head, down into your heart. Imagine you are seeing and listening with the eyes and ears of your heart. Breathe slower and deeper and through your heart.

As you might notice, the heart plays a huge role in accessing your “magic”. Research shows that the heart influences your perceptions, intelligence and your experiences of life (…just like a hummingbird).

With practice, you don’t even have to stop what you are doing to experience more “hummingbird moments”. 

Unless you want to.

Here’s to conquering stress.

Get more from The Stress Experts, here.

With heart,

The Stress Experts