What migrating geese taught me about making major life decisions

Photo by Charles Jackson on Unsplash

The other day, I was walking our dog around our new neighborhood, which is surrounded by farmland. It was a bright, sunny day. As we walked among empty green fields, he sniffed the air curiously, adjusting to all the new smells of an unfamiliar ecosystem. Then, in the distance, I heard a familiar cackle of bird calls, and looked up to see a chevron of wild geese flying overhead.

As we walked further into the low-lying farms, we came upon a whole field full of geese, resting on their migratory route along the Pacific coast. Just as we stopped to look at them, a truck barreled down a narrow lane on the far side of the field, sending clouds of dust and hundreds of geese flying into the air. The dog and I both stood silently amid the wild cacaphony, as clouds of geese fell into perfect formation and took off down the coast.

I was reminded of one of my favorite poems, “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

This poem was a touchstone for me at a time in my life when I was trying too hard to do the “right” thing, and living in denial of my actual feelings and needs. Later, in grad school, it became a common point of reference for me and my friends as we learned how to be therapists, holding space for others to embrace their inner truths.

As I think about Mary Oliver’s poem and the wild geese returning to the wetlands around Humboldt Bay, I’m drawn to reflect on my own recent migration.

Moving from San Diego to Humboldt isn’t a rational move from a social or economic standpoint. There are few jobs, no healthcare, and little infrastructure up here. Instead, we moved here because we love the redwoods, the marsh, and the rain. It’s an irrational decision, driven by a sense of longing to be closer to nature and live a more contemplative lifestyle.

But sometimes, you have to do the irrational thing that your soul wants you to do. Like wild geese following the instincts that drive them on their yearly migrations, you have to quit the job, move abroad, elope, or whatever it is that your intuition is telling you.

As humans, we like to think of ourselves as rational animals, but according to neuroscience, we make most of our decisions unconsciously, driven by our emotions, and only later come up with rational justifications for our actions.

Other decisions, we make using deliberate, rational thought. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman referred to these two ways of thinking as System 1 and System 2. The question is when to use our reason and when to trust our intuition. As the best artists, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and investors know, getting the two to work together is an acquired art. Our intuition works best when it’s informed by thousands of hours of lived experience.

Complicating this, we have various parts of ourselves with different feelings and needs, which often create a sense of inner conflict, especially when it comes to major life decisions. In these situations, it helps to have an experienced therapist or coach who can help you understand these disparate parts and integrate them enough to gain clarity and move forward in the direction of your deepest values. Only when you’ve done this inner work, will you you be able to cut through confusion and make decisions from a place of inner wisdom.

Have you ever made a big decision based on intuition? How did it turn out for you? How have you worked through inner conflincts? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading,

Chris Cordry, LMFT

PS: I have room to take on a couple of more clients in my therapy and coaching practice this fall. I am also now accepting some insurance plans for therapy clients in California, so if you’ve been interested in working with me, now is a good time to reach out. Just reply to this email and we can set up a free 20-minute consultation.

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