The Little Bird Who Found Herself

Written by

Rev. Edwin M. McMahon, PhD

Illustrated by

Prabhjot Uppal, M.D.

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About the Book   The Little Bird Who Found Herself was written long ago by Rev. Ed McMahon for the young daughter of friends. Years later this same little girl went on to college, and hoping to pass the story on to others asked her friend and fellow classmate, Prabhjot “Jody” Uppal, to put pictures to the Little Bird story. Over the past several years Rev. Peter A. Campbell, Ph.D. has helped coordinate the process of illustrating this wonderful story that is a joy to share with others. The growing worldwide problem of increasing violence and how we effectively diminish this is at the heart of Dr. McMahon’s life’s work. He has found that once adults develop a “habit of noticing and nurturing their own important feelings” they can become creative in guiding children of all ages into learning the same habit of how to take care of their own feelings. Passing on this more embodied experience is the key to nurturing future “peacemakers from the inside.”

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About the Author   Reverend Edwin M. McMahon, Ph.D. is a teacher, author, psychotherapist, priest and cofounder of the Institute for BioSpiritual Research who has spent his life researching how parents, child caregivers, teachers and others who interact with children can personally learn to experience an inner process that creates human wholeness. The Little Bird story does this not only because it uses a non-technical, non-abstract story line, but because it neither accuses or blames, nor arouses resistance or fear in the reader/listener. Instead, it moves directly and gently into the body’s knowing where it can resonate with truths hidden within, stirring up a more embodied and meaningful connection that touches the reader/listener’s life. Readers interested in a more in-depth description of the process taught in this book, should consult the website at www.biospiritual.org for more information. Rev. McMahon and Campbell have also authored the book BioSpirituality: Focusing as a Way to Grow (Loyola Press, Chicago) which further explores and guides readers through this process.

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About the Illustrator Prabhjot Uppal, M.D. is a physician, author and illustrator from Northern California who completed her undergraduate studies at Santa Clara University prior to graduating from the Chicago Medical School in 2005. She has published artwork in the Santa Clara Review and has exhibited many of her large canvas paintings in Chicago during her medical studies. Many of Dr. Uppal’s portraitures are on display at Santa Clara University and around Monterey Peninsula. Dr. Uppal is also the author of Doctors Are People Too: A Treatise on Health Care Reform, and White Coat Tales: Being and Becoming Urban Doctors.

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Reviews NEW

As a licensed therapist for thirty years, a father of three children, a former school psychologist and elementary teacher, I strongly recommend this book. It is beautifully illustrated and a wonderful story for teaching children how to befriend and listen deeply to their own unique gifts and inner wisdom. The wise owl teaches the little bird to patiently care for her sadness, scared feelings and confusion, listening to these feelings as guides to wisdom within. Currently in our culture, we teach our children to stay in their heads alone, denying and suppressing their feelings and numbing the pain of suppression with approval seeking, substances (food,sugar,etc), and things. We are at a crossroads as a culture. This book is a unique contribution in the effort to reclaim deep body wisdom for guidance to inner peace and creativity. I believe every parent and professional should read this book to children in their care. The profound teaching in this short little story could radically change a child's life as well as the life of the caregiver. To notice and nurture difficult emotions is an essential skill to live happy, joyous, and free. I know first hand because I have met and studied with this wise author, Edwin McMahon, and his wonderful co-author Peter Campbell. The principles so beatifully illustrated and described in this healing story, helped to transform my own life. The book offers essential and practical tools for parenting that I have used, to listen compassionately to my three children as they grew to a well-balanced adulthood. I am profoundly grateful to the author for this remarkable book and I enthusiastically recommend it.

Richard Lui
Marriage and Family Therapist
Sacramento, CA
 

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Ed was kind enough to send me this book for my two little boys. My older, who is three, can't get enough of it! We've been using the techniques at home, teaching my son how to find his feelings in his body and show them love. This book has such a special way of demonstrating this. The little bird is very easy for a child to relate to. I would recommend it to anyone, especially to parents who are helping their children be in touch with their feelings. Even if you have never used these techniques before, this is a great jumping-off point. And the illustrations are so vivid and precious. This book will remain a permanent fixture in our library!

Megan M. Avalos
Sacramento, CA
 

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The Little Bird Who Found Herself is at once a jewel box, a healing fable and a guidebook for children (and adults) who don't feel comfortable because they are different. The little bird loves to chirp, loudly. But her cousins sniff, "Birds don't chirp like that!" She feels confused, lonely and sad. Then a gentle old owl advises, "Go deep inside and listen...."

The process is "Bio-Spiritual Focusing," developed and taught worldwide since 1985 by the author, a Ph.D. psychotherapist and priest; lately he's been teaching children and parents. Glorious illustrations shimmer like stained glass, quicken the eye and illumine the heart.

John Morearty, Ph.D.
Author of “Walking to Omega”
Stockton, CA
 

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"The Little Bird Who Found Herself" is sweetly written and beautifully illustrated. The story, told simply and cleverly, is about a very young bird who is teased and scorned by her fellow young birds because her loud chirps are not just like theirs. Embarrassed and sad, the little bird stops chirping and withdraws into herself until a wise old owl befriends her and suggests how she might deal with her sadness. He tells her to listen carefully to what's inside her, to overcome her sadness by examining it closely and getting close to it. She takes his advice, is soon chirping again and then discovers that her chirps have given way to a lovely song. The scorn of her fellow birds turns quickly to envy.

Youngsters who experience disappointment and sadness - and what child does not - will find useful guidance for dealing with these feelings from this book. So, too, will the adults who read the book to them, and who have their own challenges when it comes to dealing with the vagaries of life.

Charles Peterson
Sonora CA
 

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A bright, colorful little book, well written and illustrated, offering both insight and direction. Most of us, like the little bird in the story, have experienced the pain of rejection and a tendency to push the pain away, sometimes even denying it. This book walks us through a process that shows us how to be with the pain.

Learning to take time to go inside and create a gentle, caring place to hold and listen to those painful feelings leads to healing and freedom. I have used this process often with my massage clients, children and grandchildren with positive results. This is an enjoyable, easy read book great for anyone, especially parents and grandparents to use with their children and for themselves.

Patricia Regan, LMT
Toledo, OH
 

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I'm a child therapist, a father and a grandfather. And "Little Bird" resonated with all three roles.
A good story goes deep inside us -- child & adult. It makes a home there, living within us, showing us, telling us in a felt way, who we really are & can be. "Little Bird" is this kind of story.
"Little Bird" begs to be read aloud in that wonderful back-&-forth way -- pointing to bright pictures & talking about them, you & your child making a loud "CHIRP!", snuggling closer together like the owl & the little bird, and like the little bird & her sad feeling. It has an engaging story-line, a drama that draws children in. And it's a perfect bedtime story -- leaving your child with a positive, healing message and with a felt bonding to take with her into her dreams.
Maybe you can take it into your dreams, too.
But "Little Bird" is more & better than a dream-catcher, pushing away bad dreams. It can lead children not to fear or deny, but to hold, to make friends with, and to listen to their sad & scary feelings. And these feelings, common throughout childhood and challenging even to adults, if they go unheld & unhealed, can become the stuff of anxieties, nightmares and cramped, less-than-full living. Too often in our rapidly changing, uncertain world, they can unsettle adults and, much more so, children.
I heartily recommend Ed McMahon's "Little Bird". I've got a copy in my home & at my office. And I've sent another copy to my grandchildren!

David C. Young, LCSW
Colorado Springs, CO
 

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This gentle story, with its bright, color-washed illustrations, is both invitation and pathway to finding one's own unique voice and becoming connected with others in a life-forward way. Little Bird does not have it easy - her world includes painful times. That is, her world is like everyone's. Who among us hasn't been told, for instance, "Either you learn to be like us or we won't play with you."
The story includes conflict, but not violence as a reaction. Instead, Little Bird is shown, by a wise teacher, how to deal with stress thru a "tend and befriend" response rather than by "fight or flight."
The story of Little Bird speaks to children of all ages. I first heard it on a retreat when I was 50. Now I am over 60, and treasure the story's finally being available in a book that I can easily pass on to my grandchildren, and their parents.
Little Bird is a valuable addition to approaches such as mediation training and bullying prevention that are being used in the schools, and elsewhere, to reduce violence. It offers the practice of an alternative that is not only peaceful and practical, but also powerful - the power of mutual connection rather than domination.

Carole Pentony, Ph.D.
Houston, TX
 

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I love the story and appreciate it very highly as a healing aid. I’ve translated the story into Czech and we give it to every participant in our courses as the most important learning. I will also use it to tell the Little Bird story in Czech to my grandaughter with the help of the richness of the illustrations. The book is truly beautiful.

Karel Kopriva, Ph.D.
Psychotherapist, Retired Professor
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
 

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I was fortunate to meet Fr.'s Edwin McMahon and Peter Campbell at a workshop they presented on BioSpiritual Focusing and Healing Listening in 1982. It took me a long time to even notice how I carried feelings in my body, much less how to listen to and care for them. The story of The Little Bird Who Found Herself had not yet been written. After Ed made the story available, without illustrations, I used it for many years to help myself and others grasp a body feel for how to be with difficult feelings inside. I witnessed others learn to do this very quickly with the help of this story. The colorful illustrations in the book add much to the impact of the message it delivers.

I often used The Little Bird Who Found Herself to introduce BioSpiritual Focusing in conjunction with Sadie Listens (see my review on Amazon.com). Sadie Listens highlights the importance of listening to one's feelings. The Little Bird Who Found Herself teaches a way to do that.

Peter Campbell's note at the end of the book is important. It points to how this story can be used to establish a caring relationship with our own feelings, and then pass on this new way of listening inside and caring for feelings to children and other adults. Before we can pass it on, we have to use it our self.

As an added bonus, I gleaned several messages from this story:
 We each have our own chirp from the inside;
 Other people want us to chirp their way;
 We can pay attention to our own chirp;
 We don’t have to do it alone – we can find an “owl” to help us;
 We can learn to be the “owl” to ourselves – to our own hurting places, and to our happy places;
 Others will continue to try to get us to chirp their way;
 We can still stay connected to our own chirp;
 We can let other people follow their chirp without telling them how to do it.

My dream is that every child and adult would read this seemingly simple story and grasp the message that peace begins in each of us by noticing and nurturing our feelings, thus allowing the unfolding of our ongoing growth in wholeness/holiness.

Ann Marie Wyrsch, M.S.
Retired Psychiatric/Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist
St. Charles, Missouri
 

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The Joy of Listening

In The Great Divorce a trainload of souls traveled from hell to heaven for some R & R. Once there, they became increasingly uncomfortable: the brilliant sun stung their eyes, the bubbling brook tormented their ears, the spritely green grass pricked their feet. Heaven was proving just too real. They clamored back onboard their train. They returned to the dark pit to escape the excruciating delight of living.

Ed McMahon and C.S. Lewis could be brothers. Both spin tales that entrance children and lure their parents back into astonishment with the ordinary. Both know existence as a wonder rich with only-to-be-imagined possibilities. Both decry human society that replaces love with laws of righteousness and measures of acceptance. “You should” thus triumphs over “I am”; “you’re bad” cancels “I’m here”; “shut up” drowns out “listen.” The refusal to embrace life constitutes both our original and personal sin.

In this jewel of a book, McMahon does Lewis one better. The latter allowed one damned soul to choose to remain in heaven: one who committed a sin of lust, but who, at least, had tried to love. McMahon recognizes that we all fail at loving: parents with children, friends with each other, and ourselves with our own lonely and sad, angry and afraid inner being. He demonstrates a gentle method of helping each other to overcome sin through a listening love.

A little bird begins life in joy and curiosity. Hovering relatives and anxious parents soon separate her from herself in a demand for conformity. Only a wise, old owl takes the time to sit with her in order to bring her back home to herself and her God-given beauty.

Do not be fooled by the simplicity of McMahon’s story and the joy of the artist’s renditions. If we should dare to take the little bird’s journey, we too would find heaven and never leave it. And if we consented to become wise, attentive owls to others, we would deserve to be there.
 

Robert J. Willis, Ph.D.

Psychologist
Hamden, Connecticut
 

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I have been teaching Focusing to adults for over 30 years using the Biospiritual focusing approach as taught by Revs. Ed McMahon, PhD and Peter Campbell, PhD. The Little Bird Who Found Herself, by Ed McMahon, is a wonderful storybook for children that can also be extremely helpful to adults. Those just learning focusing as well as long-time focusers will enjoy this novel approach to the practice of focusing. They will see and experience themselves in the beautiful and soulful illustrations of The Little Bird. Truly here, a few pictures are worth thousands of words in helping us remember where and how we can find and nurture our own lives. The book is a quick summary of the value of doing one's inner peacekeeping work through a simple yet profound method that allows both children and adults to move faster, further, and deeper than any other growth method I have practiced.

Ruth McGoldrick,SP
Focusing instructor and Spiritual Director
Westfield, MA

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The Little Bird Who Found Herself is a timeless book for all ages. Like the Little Prince or Velveteen Rabbit it is a metaphor, fable or folk tale clothed in the format of an inviting children's story. It reminds both young and old alike how we need to journey inside ourselves to find the gifted answers, the new meanings and directions that lie hidden and waiting to be noticed and nurtured in a very special way.

This charming little story has a universal appeal for both children and adults. Even more, it offers the beginning of a profound inner journey as well. It is a passage that parents, grandparents and adult child caregivers can take together with their children. The Wise Old Owl in this story companions Little Bird into her own inner world and maturing identity. The narrative becomes a model for adults as well as children, gently leading them into a caring way of listening to their own bodies' feelings--even fears and tears--so they can hear their hidden stories.

The experience of reading this book to children offers a fresh way of bonding with them. Storytelling merges into real life because there is a Little Bird inside each of us waiting to be gifted with who we might become.

Rev. Peter Campbell
Inst. for BioSpiritual Research
Sonora, CA

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This deeply touching book will leave a profound imprint in the hearts and minds of children. The simple wisdom that children will glean is that we can learn to hold ourselves with gentleness, kindness, and love -- and that listening to our heart, feelings, and bodily wisdom provides a reliable guide in life. I have been blessed to know Ed McMahon for many years and have learned much from him. His deep wisdom, caring, and love for people and our world shines through on every page of this beautifully written book. Adults as well as children will be inspired to live with greater openness, trust, and wisdom from reading this tenderly written book. I have been recommending this book to people and getting glowing reports from those who read it.

John Amodeo, Ph.D.
Graton, CA

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After many years of observing the pain that disconnection from our inner truth creates in the lives of children well into their adulthood, I now feel a sense of relief that Ed McMahon's book, The Little Bird Who Found Herself, is available to assist the children of the world, for within the pages of this small, simple book lie answers to our human dilemma, and great hope for all creation.

This statement may at first appear bold, yet, once this book is experienced, one will discover this is a statement well grounded in the truth, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free". Where is this truth we seek? It is not in some far-off exotic land or hidden atop a snow-capped mountain. The story of Little Bird sweetly leads us to discover that the truth we seek rests right within our very being.

The exquisite illustrations, created by Prabhjot Uppal, bring Little Bird to life, as through her special story Ed McMahon gently and lovingly shows the reader the way to discover the treasures within our self ... through a very surprising doorway!

Indeed, Ed McMahon is the Wise Old Owl portrayed in his book, who sits closely beside his readers with a grand and wonderful caring presence; the reader, in turn, learns to sit caringly with their own innermost feelings, and thus comes to know them as the friends and teachers they, in truth, are. What an indescribable gift to child and adult alike when the fear of feelings is `magically' transformed into an inseparable friendship with feelings!

Within the pages of this remarkable book is a most vital life lesson for children and adults alike! Get ready to chirp, sing and FLY after reading Ed McMahon's masterpiece for all time.

Beverly Buss
Certified Expressive Arts Coach
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

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