What Trees Can Teach Us About Holding On

Scarred yet steady, the trees sway with the wind, rooted deeply and quietly connected beneath the surface.

The other evening, I sat in my backyard and watched the trees. The air was gentle, carrying just enough wind to set their branches in motion. They bent and swayed, some deeply, some only slightly. They didn’t resist. They didn’t break. They simply moved with the rhythm of the breeze, and when it passed, they stood upright again.

That’s when it struck me: this is what holding on looks like. It doesn’t mean standing rigid and unshaken. It means bending, adjusting, swaying with the storms until the air is calm again. For us, holding on isn’t about pretending we’re fine or forcing ourselves to be strong every moment. It’s about allowing ourselves to move with what life brings: the grief, the fear, the uncertainty without letting it shatter us. Sometimes that means crying. Sometimes it means resting. Sometimes it means asking for help. Just as the trees bend without shame, we can bend too. Our strength is not in never wavering, but in surviving one gust at a time until the wind finally eases.

Deep in thought, I realized that what we see above the ground, the trunk, the branches, the canopy of leaves, is only half the story. Beneath the soil, roots spread wide, reaching far beyond the canopy. And often, they are not isolated. They tangle, intertwine, and share. A hidden network exists underground where trees exchange water, send nutrients, and pass strength from one to another.

We are like that too. On the surface, it may seem we stand alone, each of us facing our own winds. But beneath, in ways often invisible, we are connected. A kind word, a shared laugh, a hand on the shoulder, these are our roots touching, our lives feeding one another when it matters most. At times the connection is small, almost unnoticeable, like the brief nod of a neighbor or a text that simply says, thinking of you. Other times it’s deep and life-saving, a friend who answers the late-night call, a family member who shows up at the door, a stranger’s kindness that lingers long after the moment has passed. These quiet exchanges, often overlooked, are what keep us alive in our hardest seasons. Just like the hidden root systems beneath the trees, our connections extend further and carry more strength than we often realize.

Sometimes a tree that is thriving will send nourishment through the soil to one that is struggling. Scientists have found that trees can pass water, sugars, and even chemical signals underground whispering life to one another when it’s needed most. It’s not weakness for the weaker tree to receive; it’s the natural order of things. A healthy forest is not a collection of individuals competing for survival, but a community quietly sustaining itself below the surface.

Like a forest, we depend on one another. Some days we are the ones offering strength: listening to a friend, cooking a meal, sending the text that arrives right on time. And other days we’re the ones who need it, leaning into the people around us just to make it through the day. Holding on doesn’t always mean carrying everything yourself. Sometimes it looks like borrowing hope until your own returns, allowing yourself to be nourished by the unseen kindness and care that flows through your “forest.”

And the scars don’t disqualify them. If you look closely, you’ll see trees with broken limbs, jagged bark, uneven growth. The storms have left their marks. Yet here they stand alive, reaching, still swaying with the wind. Their wounds are not the end of their journey; in fact, they’ve become part of their beauty. The places where bark has healed over tell of survival, of weathering seasons that might have taken them down but didn’t. Our scars, whether visible on the body or carried deep inside, don’t make us less worthy of love or belonging. They are evidence that we’ve endured. They are chapters in our story, not the final page. Just as the trees do not hide their broken places, we don’t need to erase our pain to keep going. Healing doesn’t mean pretending the damage never happened, it means continuing to grow, even if our growth looks different than it once did.

As the evening light shifted in my backyard, I realized the trees were offering me a gentle reminder: holding on isn’t about being unshakable or perfect. It’s about remembering our roots, about bending when the winds demand it, about trusting that we are connected in ways we can’t always see.

So if today feels like too much, remember the trees. Let them remind you that your life extends farther than you can imagine, that your roots reach wider than you know, and that you are part of a forest that holds one another up.

And if the winds feel unbearable right now, please don’t carry it alone. Reach for connection. You can call or text 988 (in the U.S.) to be connected with support. Wherever you are, there are people, your forest, ready to share their strength until yours returns.

That night, I stayed a little longer in my backyard, watching the branches sway gently in the fading light. The trees stood tall around me scarred yet steady, connected beneath the soil and I thought: this is what it means to hold on.

Because your presence matters. And the world is stronger when you hold on.