Eagle: Chicken Explained Clearly

What if the biggest thing holding you back is not your motivation? It's not your discipline. It's not even your circumstances, but what if it is a quiet, unquestioned belief about who you are? You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hey friends, welcome back to Relish. I'm Alysia and this is your space to step off the hamster wheel of fixing and striving and proving and to come back to who you already are. If this podcast has been supporting you, please take a

moment, follow, download, leave a rating and review. It really helps us get this work to the people who need it. So, into this quick bite. Last year I was coaching someone and they asked if I knew the story of the eagle who thought it was a chicken and I hadn't heard it but I was intrigued and I looked into it after our session and it turns out this parable is really common. It's been told in leadership circles, spiritual communities, self-growth spaces for like decades and it's been retold many times with what I found various endings. But I did like the wisdom and so I thought I'd share what I found. It feels relevant to this podcast which is about being connected to you and your truth and it

also feels relevant to this time of year whether you're setting resolutions or not. So a little bit of context for the story itself because when I looked it up it doesn't seem to have one clean official origin from what I could find. There's no single ancient text or original version. Uh but if you know different, if you recognize the story when I tell it, please email me. Um because I would love to learn and also add the reference here. From my own research, most versions tend to trace back to the early 1900s or late 1800s and are often attributed to a James Agri, a Ghanian educator and leader. So this might have actually been an African folktale and over time the story spread through oral teaching and then

eventually into leadership training, spiritual talks and motivational spaces. So that's why you're going to hear it told differently if you've heard it before. Sometimes it's framed more spiritually, sometimes psychologically, sometimes as a leadership metaphor. And sometimes the ending changes entirely. And that was really interesting to me because of course the different endings reveal whatever the storyteller is trying to teach or express. And so I'm going to give you the core version first from what I could find and then some of the variations. The story goes like this. There are some longer variations with the introduction, but one way or another, there's this farmer who finds

an egg, [snorts] and at first he doesn't know what it is, so he goes and he places it in the chicken coupe at the farm. and the egg hatches. And it turns out that this egg was not a chicken egg, but actually an eagle egg. So, this eagle hatches and it grows up surrounded by chickens. So, this eagle is pecking around the ground just like the chickens. It's scratching for the food like they do. It's uh flapping its wings, maybe just enough to hop off the air, but it never really flies. And why would it? because everyone around it is a chicken. So, it believes it's a chicken, too. Years later, a naturalist or in some versions of the story, it's a friend of the farmer. Sometimes it's

even another eagle at times, but someone else passes by the farm and notices something strange and says, you know, "Hey, that's not a chicken. That's an eagle." And then one way or another, they try to convince the eagle, hey, you're not a chicken. You know, you're not a bird of the ground. You're a bird of the sky. Look at your wings. You were made to soar. But this eagle looks around and it sees all the chickens and it feels the ground beneath its feet and it says essentially like, "No, this is who I am." It walks like a chicken. It eats like a chicken. It thinks like a chicken. It must be a chicken. In some versions, the other person, the naturalist or the friend, they take the

eagle to this high cliff and they lift it towards the sky and try to remind the eagle of their true nature. And finally, after hesitation and fear and resistance, the eagle spreads its wings and flies. And of course, that ending can be a very inspiring reminder of your potential and what's possible when you believe in yourself. And there's more to unpack with that. But first, I want to give you the context of another common ending to the story. So, in other versions, the eagle actually never flies. It lives its whole life believing it's a chicken and then it dies never knowing what it was capable of. Which ending do you like better? So my intention isn't to tell you which ending is better. I think they highlight

different truths actually. The first where the eagle flies emphasizes hope. You can always remember who you are. The second emphasizes risk in a way. If you never question your conditioning, you may never live your truth. And I don't think that second version is meant to be pessimistic. I think it's meant actually to be like an awakening. And I honestly do see this a lot in the transformational work world that I'm in. see that everyone I meet is capable of change and transformation and becoming themselves. Everyone has an authentic self and a light within them. I believe that with all my heart and the depths of my bones and my soul. But what I've seen is not everyone will do the work to step

into that. You do. The truth seeker does. The person who wants to know themselves in their true nature. the person who's willing to face the resistance and the fear. Everyone is capable but not everyone will have the courage. So the story of course is not about eagles or chickens or chicken eagles. It's really about identity and conditioning. The heart of it is the eagle didn't fail because it lacked wings. It failed because it believed that the environment that raised it defined it. That's what conditioning does. Early experiences, family systems, culture, school, trauma, praise, shame. They teach us how to survive, but they don't necessarily teach us who we really are or how to thrive. And in

fact, those experiences can obscure us from our own deeper truth. They keep us in that mode of surviving versus thriving. And over time, those survival strategies can harden into what feels like our identity. I'm just not the kind of person that does this. You know, this is as good as it gets. People like me don't do that. Chickens don't fly. I should be grateful. Why should I want more? that is living in the chicken coupe, not because it's bad, but because it's familiar. And stepping out of the and towards something that feels truer can also feel terrifying. So, are you a chicken or are you an eagle?

Maybe this can be an opportunity to stop and ask yourself, what are your dreams? Not the dreams that your family or society or other people had for you. Not the things everybody told you're good at. What about you? I also see the second kind of quieter layer to the story that I thought was worth naming. Sometimes growth doesn't start with us seeing ourselves clearly, but with someone else seeing us sometimes first. Maybe that's a mentor, a teacher, a coach, a friend, a therapist, a like moment with a stranger even, you know, someone who says, "I see something in you that you might not even see yet."

You still have to choose to fly, but being seen can crack the shell. It can open you up to the possibility of who you really are. I think this is why it's so important to surround ourselves with people who see us and want us to be our truest, most authentic selves. In my experience, I can find myself pretty easily seeing other people. I think that's one of my gifts in a way, seeing people, seeing their strengths and qualities and innate goodness. And that's part of why I love the coaching and the work that I do. But sometimes it can be hard to see myself.

Sometimes I do need someone else to mirror myself back to me. And when they do, it's this sacred and valuable moment that deepens my own selfrust and my selfworth. So this is relevant, I think, any time of year. But I want to remind you that the new year doesn't need to be about becoming someone new. Anytime you choose to go on this journey and walk this path, it's really about remembering who you already are. who you really are beneath the conditioning and the habits and the expectations. So instead of asking, you know, what should I fix or what should I force or prove, you might ask, where have I mistaken survival for my identity? Where have I been living inside of a story that's not fully true to me anymore?

Start to actually question it. What part of me is ready to stretch my wings and explore the possibilities of myself? And it doesn't need to be some big dramatic leap necessarily. Just being brave enough to question it, to be curious. And sometimes that can happen with another person who believes in you so that you can better believe in yourself. Or maybe it's an opportunity for you to see someone else that you love and care about. One final thought on this. The eagle did not become an eagle when it flew. It was always an eagle. Flying just revealed to itself what was already true. Okay, so I hope this quick bite gives you something to consider for yourself and your own possibilities. I

know that you are capable of so much more than you think, but that capability doesn't come from what you do. It's seeing and stepping into your own being. who you are. If this episode resonated, please share it with someone, maybe someone you see. I've got so much exciting content coming this next month. So, please hit follow and download so that you don't miss anything on the feed. Please leave a rating, leave a review. I hope that this podcast can help you grow in ways that you might not see, but really matter. And you taking the time to leave a review helps us grow. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Relish the amazing person that you already are that's always been

there. Remember that you are an eagle and I'll see you next time.