Lessons From An Acorn

I keep an acorn on my desk.

It sits in a pretty dish I found at a second hand shop next to a small blue feather left behind by a steller jay and a tiny jawbone found on a beach, its rows of even tinier teeth a fascination. 

These reminders of the wild are scattered around my space— an abandoned bird's nest on a windowsill, a stone from an arctic riverbed, the vertebrae of a fox in its sun-bleached glory.

I collect them as I roam and they teach me small truths about life and time and impermanence.

Lately, I’ve taken to tucking that acorn into my pocket, clasping it in my hand and running my thumb over its smooth surface, letting my nail catch under the rim of its cap.

You see, that acorn is my talisman, my protection.

Against the noise.

Against the voice of comparison that whispers words of fraudulence.

Against that nagging sense of not-enoughness.

Because acorns hold a lesson.

Within their tiny forms, they hold everything necessary to become a mighty oak tree. 

They’re filled with DNA passed through millennia and straight into their shells.

They are hardwired to reach great heights and expand into space they can hardly imagine from their starting place on the ground.

But here’s the thing- if they hide in the shade, they don’t grow.

If they surround themselves with barren soil, they don’t grow.

If they stay too long in their shell, allow themselves to atrophy where they fall, you guessed it- they don’t grow.

I think you know where I’m going here.

We are acorns.

We are filled with a millenia’s worth of DNA, all come together in the utterly unique combination that is us.

We have everything we need inside us already.

We are utterly and absolutely enough and we came into this world that way.

So it’s time to stop hiding in the shade, whether it’s the shade cast by others, or the validation we seek to allay the imposter syndrome that lurks within.

It’s time to find richer soil, in the form of community or mentorship or coaching or any place that feeds and supports us as we set our roots.

It’s time to crack open that shell, to put ourselves out there, to own our gifts and our place in this world. 

No one benefits from an acorn that never grows.

We need your oak tree to make our forest. 

We need you to grow tall. We need you to be one more example to the acorns around you of the power and possibility of embracing and loving what you hold inside you.

All that you hold inside you.

Not sure how? I can help. 

Let’s stop hiding in shells that were only ever meant as a temporary residence. Let’s bump and roll and slide and do whatever we need to to find the sun and the fertile soil we need to grow, to see what lies beyond this starting place.

It likely won’t be easy. It likely won’t be comfortable. If it were, we’d be surrounded by towering oaks everywhere we look.

But we aren’t.

We need trees— we need you.

And I can promise this much without question or hesitation: every bit of work, every bit of discomfort, will be worth it from the very first taste of sky and sun on your skin. 

Stay curious out there!

P.S. Do you know someone who needs to hear this right now? Share this post. Forward it to anyone you know who is hiding her gifts, who isn’t sure she’s enough for the dreams that call to her in the dark. Let’s shine some sunlight on every acorn we know. Let’s be the rich and fertile soil that helps them grow.