Field Guide to
What Really Matters:
Purpose

The Broken Branch

I’ve always had an affinity for trees. When I was a girl I would climb to the top of the silver maple tree in our backyard to read books, or I would hide by myself under the branches of our weeping willow tree that touched all the way to the ground. Trees were my refuge when the world felt too painful.

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Many, many years later I found an unexpected teacher in an old oak tree that I discovered while on a writing retreat. I had signed up for the retreat in a desperate attempt to unblock my creativity as a writer. I had always believed writing was one of my callings but I hadn’t been able to access it for years since my father died. 

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During the retreat we were sent outdoors on a vast wooded property to find a place to sit and write for a few hours. I found a large old oak tree, which felt like home to me, and huddled against the trunk with my notebook. After multiple failed attempts to start writing something … anything … I gave up and put my notebook down. Maybe I was wrong about my “calling”—maybe I wasn’t meant to write at all—maybe I just needed to give up that fantasy. 

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I was suddenly overwhelmed with frustration and grief as I recognized that I still felt completely broken inside so many years after my father’s suicide death. Maybe my dream of writing had been too badly shattered and could never be repaired. I began to sob as I released all the hopes and expectations I’d been carrying. I hugged my knees to my chest and let the tears flow.

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Amid that barrage of sadness I became aware of a sensation of being patted on my left shoulder, as if being comforted. I turned to see that a broken branch from the oak tree was hanging downward and tapping my shoulder as it swayed in the breeze.

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Here this tree that had been alive for hundreds of years through wars and pandemics and floods and fires was somehow offering me comfort. I felt a soothing sensation of peace wash over me as I recognized that I am part of a much larger story unfolding across galaxies and millennia and this sadness was just a blip in time.

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In my notebook I wrote: “What is broken heals.” This broken branch was offering me a chance to heal. If a broken branch could fulfill a purpose like that, then maybe I could find a way—in my own broken state—to still write. Like the Japanese practice of kintsugi--repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold--I can view my own broken places as opportunities to let my light shine out to others.

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That moment under the oak tree was pivotal for me. I learned that I would have to go through my wound—and not try to escape or avoid it—in order to follow my purpose as a writer. That was the day that I started writing from within myself about the pain I was carrying instead of trying to write for the world outside of me.

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The world tells us to follow our bliss ... dream big and explore our passion.

But in reality we need to go within to our darkest places.

Search out the wounds and brokenness.

The inner path of purpose begins there.

Embracing the brokenness is the medicine we need to heal it.