I Sat With Trees Every Day After My Heart Was Broken — Here's What I Learned
6 Life Lessons I Learned From Sitting With Trees After Heartbreak
I think heartbreak is one of the greatest gifts that the universe can give someone.
At the time it’s terrible. It rips you apart. Your heart aches for days on end. You feel like the world is falling apart right before your eyes and that you are never going to find a way out. You don’t want to see anyone. You want to hide. You want to disappear.
Whether your heartbreak is from losing someone, a relationship, or something else … I think we can all agree that you don’t realise the depths of the human experience until you experience great pain. It’s like you fell into a hole only to realise that it goes deeper and deeper.
For most of us, it’s a luxury to be able to be depressed and not go to work or continue with our daily activities. We have to continue with the usual routine while still trying to mend the wounds of our heart. This often makes everything worse — we put up a mask to the world when we’re really hurting inside.
This is when the lockdowns of COVID became a blessing in disguise for me.
The world was on pause. 3km boundaries. Only one hour of exercise outside allowed.
It was like I had to sit with myself. My own thoughts. I couldn’t distract myself. My heart was broken and I had no other choice but to face my own demons.
I had to walk into the darkness I felt.
This is when I started going into the wetlands every single day.
Little did I know some of my greatest transformations were about to come … all thanks to listening to the trees.
Nature Doesn’t Rush
“A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”
— Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
I would spend hours walking through the wetlands during the lockdowns. The more time I spent there, the more the world around me seemed to disappear — and the wisdom of Mother Nature would begin whispering to my soul.
I became fascinated by the trees and how tall they could grow. I bought a book called The Hidden Life of Trees.
One of the realisations I had was that the wetlands didn’t rush. Nature didn’t rush. It had its own timing. It was a collective team effort that endures over time. Everything is related to each other — they “inter-are,” as Thich Nhat Hanh would say.
I learned that trees grow slowly, adding one ring each year beneath their bark — each circle marking a quiet year of life lived.
I was so obsessed with finding the perfect relationships, growing, developing myself, that I tried to rush the natural rhythm of love, healing, and growth.
Steady growth is so much more important than rushed growth.
When you're constantly looking for speed and shortcuts, you end up with band-aid fixes that never lead to lasting healing or change.
I was reminded to allow heartbreak to unfold in its own time — not to force healing, but to let it flow as a natural result of the intention and desire to heal.
Underground Kindness
“A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a ‘wood wide web’ of soil fungi… allowing the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods.”
— Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
One of the most beautiful lessons in the book — and one that still amazes me — is the intelligence of trees.
When a tree senses a nearby neighbour is struggling to get nutrients, it shares its own through the underground root network.
During heartbreak, one of the most important things — if you have it — is to rely on your tribe.
Let your family, your friends, your mentors comfort you and carry you when you can’t carry yourself.
I personally kept everything to myself. I didn’t want the world to know. I didn’t want to feel like I lost control by trusting others. But when things got bad enough … I had to.
The trees taught me: healing isn’t a solo job.
The people who love you can play a huge role in sharing their nutrients —
nutrients of love, compassion, and hope.
No Tree Stands Alone
“When trees grow together, nutrients and water can be optimally divided among them all so that each tree can grow into the best tree it can be.”
— Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
We must realise we are social beings. That we can rely on others. That they can love and support us through difficult times.
This doesn’t mean you hand over your healing — but it means when you’re truly struggling, you have the humility to seek help.
That humility is often where great healing begins.
You start to care more about healing than pride. And that’s when new doors open.
The Wisdom of Letting Go
Trees let go of their leaves with the seasons. You never hear a tree screaming over losing its leaves.
It doesn’t launch a war against Autumn. It just becomes one with the changing of the season.
This is the great key.
To meditate on impermanence. Of nature. Of yourself. Your emotions, your relationships, your environment.
People come and go.
Happiness comes. Suffering follows. Then the cycle repeats.
But clinging to happiness and resisting sorrow — that’s the root of suffering.
Just like the trees, we have seasons. Seasons to shed our skin. To fall apart. To be bare for a while. And then… to grow.
Sometimes healing is gentle.
Other times, you need tough love.
A wake-up call. A new routine. A change.
And that’s part of your ecosystem too.
Let go when it’s time to let go.
No One Tries to Outshine the Other
“The trees don’t want to take anything away from each other, and so they develop sturdy branches only at the outer edges of their crowns… only in the direction of ‘non-friends.’”
— Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
Can you believe it? Trees won’t overgrow each other just to steal more light.
They grow respectfully, giving space to those they recognise as “friends.”
Meanwhile, our culture is obsessed with outshining. Competing. Consuming. Performing.
Platforms where everyone posts their best highlights make it nearly impossible to feel okay when you’re healing.
You scroll and feel behind. Unworthy. Alone.
But the ancient trees around me were humble. They didn’t block each other’s sun.
If someone around you is struggling… are you blocking the light?
This world has turned us into gatekeepers. Hoarders of help.
And in toxic relationships, it becomes a battle for sunlight. A constant feeling of not having enough.
The forest whispered something else.
Grow with someone.
Not over them.
The Tree That Grows Around the Wound
The wetlands had experienced bushfires. When I returned years later, many trees were scorched black.
But a few months on, something amazing happened —
New green shoots. Life returning. The wetland rising again.
Heartbreak isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s not about erasing the pain.
It’s about growing around it. Living with it.
Using that darkness to learn about your soul.
So that when you rise…
You realise you were already whole to begin with.
The Stillness Is Not Emptiness
After heartbreak, the silence felt unbearable. But trees taught me that stillness is where the healing begins — not where it ends.
I never expected trees to be such a big part of my healing.
But they were.
The wetlands. The grasslands. The quiet.
I think most of us don’t return to nature enough. We forget the wisdom of the trees, the creeks, the silence.
There’s more to learn there than any book or influencer can offer.
Heartbreak will always feel like the end — unless you nourish the spirit.
And when you do… you might find, like I did, that the silence isn’t empty.
It’s alive.
And it’s teaching you how to live again.
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It helps others find this work and keeps me writing slow, honest pieces like this.
Leave a Comment
Have you ever healed with nature?
Or sat with silence after heartbreak?
I’d love to hear what it taught you.
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May you walk in peace,
— Matt
Modern Monk