The Honky Nut

— What a Tiny Seedling Taught Me About Purpose, Boundaries and Belonging to Yourself

If you have ever given so much of yourself to others that you lost track of why you were growing in the first place — this post is for you.

I nearly walked past it.

It was sitting on the ground in the middle of the bush track, small and unremarkable — a honky nut, one of the rough-shelled seeds that fall from the native trees here in Western Australia. I almost didn't look twice. But something made me stop and pick it up. And there, growing out of the top of it, impossibly small and vividly green, were two tiny leaves. A seedling, already beginning. Already becoming what it was always meant to be.

I held it for a moment. I took a photo. And then I put it back.

That moment has stayed with me. Not because it was dramatic — it wasn't. But because of what it quietly said about purpose. About who we grow for. And about what we owe the people who stop to look at us along the way.

The seedling did not grow for me

Here is what struck me most, standing there on that path with my dog beside me and the gum trees overhead.

That seedling did not begin its life because I needed a photo of it. It did not push its first leaves toward the light so that I could have a moment of inspiration on my morning walk. It was already in the middle of its own unfolding when I arrived. I simply happened to be there — and I was lucky enough to notice.

I used that little honky nut. I borrowed a moment of its journey. I let it give me something — a spark of wonder, a thought that turned into something larger. And then I placed it back in the earth and walked on, so it could continue becoming what it was always going to become.

That, I believe, is the correct relationship between a person's purpose and the people who benefit from it. You are allowed to benefit from someone's light. But you do not own it. You did not create it. And you are not entitled to take it with you when you go.

Your purpose belongs to you

I want to speak directly to something that I see often — in the people I work with and in the patterns I have lived myself.

There are people in this world who are naturally generous. Naturally nurturing. Naturally the ones who show up, hold space, give energy, offer comfort. And the world has a way of finding those people and leaning on them — sometimes so heavily that the person underneath the leaning begins to disappear.

What I want to offer you is this: your purpose is intrinsically yours.

Other people may see value in what you do. They may be helped by your presence, your wisdom, your care, your work. That is a beautiful thing — it is one of the ways human beings are designed to nourish one another. But their being helped by you is a consequence of your purpose. It is not the purpose itself.

You do not exist to be useful to other people. You exist to grow into the fullest, most alive version of yourself. And in doing that — in following your own unfolding — you become someone whose light is genuinely available to share. Not depleted. Not hollowed out. Genuinely available, because it is being replenished by the source it came from.

The seedling does not give away its roots to make the soil more comfortable for everything around it. It grows them deeper so it can stand taller.

When someone disrupts your natural purpose

Now I want to speak to the other side of this — because not everyone who takes from you does so gently.

Some people do not borrow a moment of your journey the way I borrowed that honky nut's. Some people pick you up and carry you away from the place where you were growing. They redirect your energy toward their needs. They make their comfort, their growth, their healing the primary reason you are in the room. And slowly — sometimes so slowly you do not notice until you are far from where you started — you find yourself growing toward their light instead of your own.

What I know is this: anyone who requires you to abandon your own purpose in order to serve theirs is not honouring you. They may not even be aware of what they are doing — most people who consume others are operating from their own unmet hunger, not from malice. But their awareness does not change the impact on you.

You are allowed to name this. You are allowed to place yourself back in the earth where you were growing and say — this is where I belong. This is my path. I can walk alongside you for a while, but I cannot become you, or disappear into you, or make your purpose mine at the expense of my own.

That is not selfishness. That is the most honest form of self-respect there is.

The thank you before you walk on

One of the things I did before I put that seedling back down was pause. I acknowledged it. I felt something like gratitude for what it offered me in that moment — a small, quiet teaching on a Saturday morning when I needed it.

I think we can do this with people too. We can receive what someone offers us — their time, their energy, their presence, their care — and genuinely honour it, without believing that because it was good, we are entitled to more of it. Without pulling the whole plant out of the ground because we liked the flower.

Receiving gracefully is its own kind of respect. It says: I see what this cost you. I value it. And I do not need to take all of it.

If you are the one who gives — you are also allowed to receive gracefully from yourself. To take what you need before you offer the rest. To water your own roots first.

A question to sit with

The honky nut went back into the earth. It is still growing, somewhere on that track, becoming the tree it was always going to become. My brief presence in its story did not define it.

I want to leave you with this:

Whose purpose are you currently growing toward — and when did you last tend to your own?

Sit with that gently. There is no wrong answer. There is only the honest one.