Finding wisdom in unexpected places

I've always been fascinated by the way ordinary conversations can lead us somewhere completely unexpected. This one began while I was on holiday in Aviemore. Walking back to where I was staying, I noticed the street sign for Corbett Place.

"Isn't a Corbett another name for a crow?" I asked my partner. "No," he replied. "A Corbett is a Scottish hill that's smaller than a Munro." A little further along the road was Munro Drive, and I soon discovered that many of the nearby streets were named after Scottish mountains or people connected with the Highlands.

I'd confused Corbett with corbie – the old Scots word for a crow. It was a small mistake, but it stayed with me. The more I thought about the corbie, the more curious I became. Why had this ordinary black bird occupied such a place in Scottish folklore? Why did it so often appear in stories at the edges of difficult places? As so often happens, one question quietly gave rise to another.

An unexpected lesson

The corbie is not the bird most people admire. It isn't brightly coloured or melodious. It doesn't arrive as a symbol of romance or happiness. In stories and folklore, it often appears at the edges of difficult places – battlefields, storms and lonely landscapes, where others would rather not look.

Yet I wonder if that is exactly why the corbie has something to teach us. There is something quietly reassuring about it. It seems entirely at home in landscapes that others might find bleak, as though it understands that darkness is simply another part of life rather than something to be feared. It may be that this is why the corbie has remained such a powerful figure in Scottish folklore.

Sitting with difficult places

As therapists, and perhaps simply as human beings, we are often invited into those same landscapes. Grief, betrayal, trauma, shame, fear. Places that others may instinctively turn away from. The work is not to rescue someone from those places. Nor is it to convince them that everything will be alright. It is to stay with them long enough that they discover they are stronger than they believed.

The corbie reminds us that wisdom rarely comes from avoiding life's darker moments. More often, it is found by remaining curious within them. I wonder whether resilience has been misunderstood. Maybe it isn't about becoming hard enough that nothing hurts. Maybe it is about becoming wise enough that even painful experiences can be gathered into the story of who we are, rather than defining it.

What curiosity reveals

Looking back, it strikes me that my misunderstanding about Corbett and corbie was oddly appropriate. I thought I was looking for the meaning of a word, but instead I found myself reflecting on what the bird might represent. I wonder if that's how curiosity works. We think we're looking for an answer, only to discover we're really being invited to ask a different question. Understanding may work in much the same way. It doesn't always change the facts of our lives. Sometimes it simply changes the way we see them.

In therapy, this is something I witness time and again. People often arrive believing they need to become more confident, more resilient or somehow 'better' than they are. Yet as they begin to understand themselves with greater compassion, many discover that the qualities they were searching for were already present. Therapy doesn't always give us something new. Sometimes it helps us recognise what has been there all along.

Becoming more completely ourselves

I wonder whether the corbie has another lesson to offer. It doesn't spend its energy comparing itself with the robin or the goldfinch. It simply lives according to its own nature. I wonder whether we spend too much of our lives doing exactly the opposite.

Many of us become experts at noticing the qualities we admire in other people while overlooking those that quietly exist within ourselves. We compare what feels ordinary about us with what appears exceptional in someone else. In doing so, we can become disconnected from our own strengths, wisdom and way of being.

Perhaps growth isn't about acquiring qualities we don't yet possess. Perhaps it is about recognising the qualities that have quietly been there, waiting to be seen. Maybe growth asks the same of us. Not to become brighter, louder or more acceptable to other people, but to become more completely ourselves.

The corbie lives in a landscape of both light and shadow. It neither denies one nor clings to the other. Understanding doesn't change who we are. It changes how we see ourselves. Perhaps that was the gift of the corbie. Not that it gave me an answer, but that it invited me to look a little more closely. And sometimes, that is where understanding begins.